Council pledges to monitor incinerator emissions

Emissions from a waste incinerator set to be built on the Dorset coast will be monitored by the county council.

Powerfuel Portland Ltd is planning to build the incinerator on land at Portland Port after the Court of Appeal dismissed a legal challenge brought by campaigners last month.

Dorset Council said it would sample both emissions from the chimney stack and along the main road to take account of extra lorry trips to and from the site.

Developer Powerfuel Portland Ltd said it would work with the Environment Agency to ensure "all required data is collected, analysed and made accessible to the public".

The incinerator is expected to be able to process up to 202,000 tonnes of household, commercial and skip waste a year, creating enough energy to power about 30,000 homes.

Despite permission initially being rejected by Dorset Council, it was given approval by the government in September 2024 following an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.

Three Court of Appeal judges unanimously agreed to dismiss an appeal by Stop Portland Waste Incinerator group in November after the High Court failed to grant a statutory review of the decision.

Council leader Nick Ireland said the authority would monitor near the proposed site and along the A354, which could suffer an extra 7,500 to 11,000 lorry journeys each year.

Speaking at a council meeting, he said the move would stop the incinerator being its own "judge and jury" by monitoring its own emissions .

Mr Ireland said the council had consistently opposed the incinerator, which he claimed could produce 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to more than the entire domestic heating emissions of Weymouth and Portland, or 100,000 cars.

"At roughly 30% of Dorset's emissions it would severely undermine our carbon reduction target… adding another source of emissions is incompatible with our climate commitments," he said.

Addressing the council meeting, Portland resident Giovanna Lewis said the local campaign would close at the end of the year after raising almost £250,000 to fight the proposals.

She said both politicians and the public were turning against incineration and were unhappy with self-monitoring, especially as it allowed for no monitoring at all when incinerators were powered down and back up again, which she claimed was the worst time for "filthy emissions."

"While business may rationalise this, it's a whole different ball game if you live and breathe next to one," she said.

She said monitoring equipment should be installed as soon as possible to establish benchmark readings of the current air quality.

Mr Ireland said he would write to Powerfuel for a contribution towards the cost of the monitoring equipment.

The council leader claimed that the project remained at risk – with estimated construction costs at £150m to £180m and falling returns due to overcapacity and no waste contract in place for the incinerator, along with other issues.

He added that he had written to all five Dorset MPs asking them to support a private members bill in parliament that would seek to stop the construction of all incinerators.

Powerfuel Portland said the project would be "a multi-million pound investment into the local area and jobs for local people".

It said it would allow the council to "manage its waste in-county, in line with the proximity principle and legal obligations - rather than continuing its current approach which is to export Dorset's residual waste (and associated carbon emissions) to other similar facilities across the country and abroad".

A statement added that Powerfuel would pay fees to the EA as the "appropriate competent authority for these matters".

Landowner Portland Port has previously said the plant would enable visiting ships, including cruise ships, to use shore power rather than their engines while in port.

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