Westbury incinerator decision deferred until July

Protesters gathered outside the planning meeting

A final decision on plans to build a £200m incinerator has been delayed until July.

Wiltshire Council was due to consider the application for the facility at Westbury at a meeting on Wednesday.

But committee chairman Howard Greenman called for it to be deferred, saying councillors did not have all the facts.

Thousands of people had objected to the plans, and there was a police presence in the meeting and protesters outside.

Northacre Renewable Energy said its incinerator would use the latest technology, save material from landfill and help cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The decision came back to Wiltshire Council after Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, decided that he would not call in the application, as requested by South West Wiltshire MP Dr Andrew Murrison.

Wiltshire Council Strategic Planning Committee members, meeting in Trowbridge, voted to defer their decision after saying there had been "material changes" to the application in the nine months since the plans were previously approved.

Parish and Wiltshire councillors told the meeting about 2,000 individual objections had been registered, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

'Threatening correspondence'

Mr Greenman said he had received "threatening correspondence", and there were two police officers inside the council chambers at the start of proceedings.

He called for the deferral and said: "We didn't have all the facts, we didn't have the full information.

"Firstly, we have this consultation running at the moment, and that is a material consideration, and we know that there is government appetite to significantly reduce waste going to both landfill and incineration, possibly by around 50%."

NREL said the new incinerator could create 450 construction jobs

Northacre Renewable Energy (NREL) has expressed "regret" over the deferral.

It says that advice it has received suggested there had been "no material changes" that would require the application to be reconsidered.

The company says the facility is an "important part of Wiltshire's sustainable future", which could create 450 construction jobs and a further 40 "highly-skilled permanent roles".