Council to urge new Government ministers to overturn planning permission for Wisbech incinerator

Council Leader, Cllr Chris Boden, told Monday's Full Council meeting (15 July) that "anything which can be done, must be done".

It comes after the Council lost its legal battle to halt the Medworth Energy from Waste Combined Heat and Power Facility planned for Algores Way, Wisbech.

A High Court judge refused the Council's application for a judicial review of the decision by Clare Coutinho MP, former Secretary of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, to grant the incinerator planning permission.

Further legal advice taken by the Council was clear that there are no further realistic grounds to oppose the incinerator decision with a judicial review.

Now Members are pinning hopes on new Government ministers overturning the decision to grant planning consent.

At Monday's Full Council meeting, Cllr Boden told Members: "The issue isn't fully finished yet. We do have a new Government and we are able to take actions which could assist us. I'm quite confident that any proposal by Government ministers to overturn what has been decided about the Wisbech Incinerator would be resisted by civil servants, but we have already seen civil servant advice isn't always necessarily followed by ministers.

"So, what we will be doing this week is to write to Ed Miliband in his capacity as new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, and a separate letter to Steve Reed, the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in order to put our case to them that it would be in accordance with their own policies that they ran for election on to take a look at the Wisbech incinerator and see if it's possible for them to overturn what has been decided.

"We're going to do that in an entirely non-political way, we're not going to raise any party politics in it, because most important of all is to try, even at this 11th hour, to try to get that decision reversed and anything which can be done, must be done. To be honest, I'm 100% confident they'll be advised by their civil servants not to do it, but nevertheless they still may. Any chance we've got, we've got to do it."

• Watch the Full Council meeting via the Council's YouTube channel (incinerator discussed from 5 minutes, 20 seconds)

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July 2024