Bid to build manure energy plant fails
BBCA food waste and manure energy plant will not be built following a decision by a planning body.
Plans for the facility near Sedgefield were approved last December, but the case was brought before the government's Planning Inspectorate by developers after Durham County Council failed to give formal notice to move ahead with the project within the time expected.
On Tuesday,the inspectorate said the proposed plant's benefits would be outweighed by the "very significant harm" the site would cause to the landscape's "character and appearance".
Teesside firm BioConstruct NewEnergy declined to comment. The Reform UK-led council said it was reviewing the decision.
The firm had previously said the facility would process food waste and farmyard manure to produce gas, which then would have been purified into biomethane for the National Grid.
Durham County Council had initially approved the plant but then never gave the developers the formal notice required to move ahead with the scheme.
This was in part because local firm Knotty Hill Golf Centre had come forward to say it had been not been consulted over the plans, despite being nearby the proposed plant.
BioConstruct NewEnergy then referred the case to the Planning Inspectorate over the delays over formal planning permission.
But the case has now been dismissed, and it is understood the scheme will no longer go ahead, with the planning body arguing the plant would "harm the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside".
It also said the plant would have "moderate to major significant visual effects" on the views from local footpaths, as well as Knotty Hill Golf Centre.
The golf course's owner Dennis Craggs said: "Now we can just move on without this huge worrying cloud hanging over our heads."
General manager of nearby Hardwick Hotel Tim Boyd said his major concern with the scheme had always been about its potential smell.
"We do a lot of outside events...weddings outside, we do music festivals," he said.
He said the planning body's decision was "fantastic news" for the local area.
Nevertheless, the Planning Inspectorate said the evidence it had seen suggested the plant would not have caused "unacceptable odour emissions" and was not one of its reasons for dismissing the case.
