Peter Kitchen: Enflamed by lack of democracy over Shrewsbury incinerator

So when a small square information leaflet dropped through the letterbox of my home in nearby Harlescott explaining how the £60 million plant was nearly finished, it didn't come as much of a surprise.

But the news of tests at the site and cleaning out the boilers over the next few weeks ahead of the incinerator becoming operational still made my heart sink a little.

Let's get one thing straight. My caution has little to do with fears over the safety of Veolia's "energy recovery facility".

Five years ago I was fortunate enough to be invited, as a representative of the Shrewsbury Chronicle, by Veolia to visit a similar plant at Chineham, near Basingstoke. It is a building which bears a great resemblance to the one now being finished in Shrewsbury, only this one sits in the countryside.

The ERF (as Veolia insists on it being called) was clean and run to the highest safety standards. As Veolia is at pains to point out, it is not building burners to pump waste into the air – heat is recovered and turned into electricity to be fed into the network. It is a 21st century solution to the problem of how to dispose of our waste.

No, the reason I look on the incinerator with such distaste is because it has become a gleaming silver symbol of the day the people of northern Shrewsbury were let down by the planning process and the democratic system which is supposed to represent their views.

This incinerator wasn't wanted. As soon as it was announced it would be built within the town's boundary close to businesses and not far from homes, people reacted with outrage.

Public meetings were held to mount a campaign. Town MP Daniel Kawczynski said he would "lie in the road" to stop construction work starting.

When the incinerator plans came before a Shropshire Council planning committee, members refused it – only to then be told they would be breaching the terms of the authority's 30-year contract with Veolia to deal with the county's waste; a contract which conveniently had a clause stating an ERF would have to be built.

The rest is history. Veolia appealed against the decision, an inquiry was held and the planning inspector ruled in Veolia's favour.

This is a plant which has been forced on an unwilling people – a mass of people who have since fallen silent, disenchanted no doubt with their views being disregarded and the democratic process being bypassed.

So it was somewhat fitting when, in one final act of defiance, a tombstone was set up outside the plant bemoaning the death of democracy. It's something that, in the eyes of many people, the incinerator will always represent.

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