What is happening with Sowerby Bridge incinerator permit: Decision on controversial bid for Calderdale incinerator permit draws closer

Calder Valley Skip Hire, which wants to run a small waste incineration plant (SWIP) at its Belmont, Sowerby Bridge, site made the application earlier this year after a previous one was rejected after a public inquiry.

The company has planning permission to develop the plant but must also have an environmental permit to run it.

Inquiry planning inspector John Woolcock believed emissions from the incinerator would be potentially harmful to human health, and effectively rejected the previous application.

The company has argued the SWIP would not pose a danger to human health.

Following the latest consultation, Calderdale Council will decide whether to accept or reject the application.

The council, which has published details on its website, said the company has now responded to its earlier request for further information, and the council’s consultants Bureau Veritas have completed a review of the company’s Human Health Risk Assessment, dating from February 2022.

Bureau Veritas highlighted some aspects that need to be clarified and the council says Calder Valley Skip Hire has now provided the council with enough information, which it has published, for a decision to be made after taking into consideration responses in the 21-day consultation, running from Monday, October 14.

All responses should be emailed to [email protected].

When this latest consultation ends, a decision date will be set and the SWIP permit application will be accepted or rejected.

Recently, councillors called on the new Government to pause and review incinerator applications – a move which might halt the proposal.

A complicated history stretching back nearly 10 years has seen Calderdale Council refuse planning permission for the incinerator, that decision being overturned on appeal to the planning inspectorate, and objectors winning the right to a judicial review of a subsequent decision by the council’s cabinet to grant an environmental permit, after which the permit was quashed.

Following this, the status of the permit application was deemed to be “undetermined”, hence the company’s appeal, which Mr Woolcock dismissed, effectively refusing it, and now the new application.