CONCERNED residents were given answers to their questions about plans to open an incinerator in Winsford at a meeting this week – but they may not have been the answers they were looking for.

More than 40 residents - most of them from Middlewich Road - turned up at the monthly meeting of Winsford Town Council on Monday, armed with a petition signed by more than 1,000 people, and hoping to be told how they can fight against plans to run an incinerator in Winsford Industrial Estate.

Instead, they were given an explanation from Cheshire West and Chester Council’s lead environmental protection officer, Martin Doyle, as to why there is little residents can do to stop it.

Mr Doyle said: “We’re assessing the environmental permit application, this isn’t a planning application. The planning application has already been decided by the planning department, and that was for a change of use.

“The planning department would have looked at it and said, ‘they want to carry out industrial process in an industrial estate, is that reasonable?’ From a planning perspective, they thought it was reasonable.

“The application was not for an incinerator, the application was for a change of use. So the planning inspector cannot look at what is proposed at the end of use, they can only look at what is being asked for in that application, which is why that application as I understand it was approved.

“What happens then is, to operate an incinerator, you need an environmental permit, and that is what we’re in the process of assessing.”

Residents complained that they were not consulted and said they were given no chance to have their say at the planning stage, with the first time they heard about the application just metres from homes being when the Guardian reported the plans in January.

Some residents criticised ward councillors Cllr Brian Clarke and Cllr Pam Booher for not calling the application in, during the planning stage, meaning it would have to go to public inquiry.

William Davies, who started the petition, said: “It is my understanding that if this application was called in at the start, it would have gone to a public meeting. As residents, we are very unhappy with this.”

Eddisbury MP Antoinette Sandbach has previously criticised the two councillors.

She said: “I am shocked that Winsford Wharton ward councillors have allowed this application to reach decision stage without involving their local residents.

“This should have been ‘called-in’ to the planning committee in my opinion, with opportunity for residents to have their say. Sadly this stage has been passed and I have written to Cllr Brian Clarke and Cllr Pam Booher to express my anger and concerns.”

But Cllr Clarke responded at the town council meeting, explaining why he and Cllr Booher could not call in the application.

Cllr Clarke said: “The application was for change of use going back to what it was originally. That’s why it wasn’t called in. You need a planning reason to call it in and if you don’t have a planning reason, an inspector will laugh you out of court.

“I can assure you this has been looked into fully - you have not been forgotten. But the reason I didn’t call it in was I had no good reason to call it in.”

Matthew Conway, co-owner of OSL Energy, the incinerator applicant, also went along to the meeting to field questions and give reassurances to the members of the public.

He issued an open invitation to residents to visit the plant and played down the scale of it.

Mr Conway said:“What I’d like to point out is that for some reason the Environmental Agency has called it an incinerator, but we never called it an incinerator. “Some things I’ve seen said about the plans, I think if I lived in your road I’d be concerned too. But it’s not a large scale incinerator. There is pollution control on the system to ensure nothing harmful comes out of it and we’ll have regular checks including checks from an independent company.”

“It will not be a big plant. I live in Whitegate and I’m in Winsford Morrisons every week. I have no interest in making Winsford a dumping ground, because I live here.”