Campaigners battling plans for a £16 million waste burning plant at Warboys landfill site have warned objectors that the time to make their views known is running out.

A deadline for comments on an environmental impact statement on the scheme has been set as June 3.

Villagers are concerned that a combined heat and power plant - which would be used to evaporate contaminated water from dump sites - proposed by Sycamore Planning Ltd, would cause pollution and potential health issues.

Sycamore Planning has said the system was safe, emissions would have to meet strict controls set by the Environment Agency, and that materials being brought on to the site would be tested rigorously.

Villagers have been up in arms for decades over the safety of the landfill site where hazardous waste was dumped. The site has closed to dumping and the land is being reinstated.

The plan involves the construction of a combined heat and power plant which would burn tonnes of waste wood a year in a separate water treatment facility to evaporate leachate soaking out of the site at Warboys and other dumps in a 30-mile radius. Some electricity would go in to the grid.

Betty Ball, from Warboys Landfill Action Group, said the site contained 250,000 tonnes of hazardous waste tipped without planning permission and yet the developer insisted the processed leachate would be safe to release into the air.

“Locals are, understandably, not reassured by this,” she said. “The village has experienced problems from the landfill site for 25 years and was looking forward to some respite.”

Mrs Ball said: “The evaporation from the waste water treatment facility gives us the most concern. The leachate will be heated up into gas form then released through a 17 metre high chimney. The process of evaporation is untested in the UK and there is no data to base the risks on.”

She said Cambridgeshire County Council decided initially that the plan did not require an environmental impact statement but changed its mind after being challenged by WLAG. A 30-day consultation was taking place which ends on June 3.

Mrs Ball said leaflets explaining the case and telling residents how they could object had been delivered door to door in the village.

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