Incinerator scheme shock

Angry villagers near Kidderminster are bracing themselves to fight controversial plans to site a massive incinerator and recycling plant near their homes.

Mercia Waste is searching for a suitable location for a plant to help cope with Worcestershire's ever-growing mountain of household waste.

Parish councillors in Hartlebury have been left fuming after the village was named among six locations being studied as a possible site for the plant.

A campaign has already been launched to oppose the incinerator being built in the village.

It is not the first time residents have fought plans for such a scheme.

In the 1990s thousands of people fought plans to put a massive recycling plant in the village and also against one planned at the former British Sugar site on the Stourport Road at Kidderminster.

County officials say alternative ways of dealing with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of household waste produced each year need to be found as landfill sites are quickly being filled.

Mercia Waste, which deals with the county's rubbish, is looking at possible energy-from-waste schemes and has said that such a plant would be able to power housing estates, factories and offices.

Councillor Maurice Broomfield, a member of Worcestershire County Council, said today he would "do his best to help Hartlebury stop the plant being built locally".