A new waste recycling facility on a former golf course near Hemingford could include a huge processing building covering nearly a quarter of the site, metal salvage and overnight parking for up to 85 lorries, it has emerged.

Huntingdon-based construction services firm Mick George Ltd is about to launch a planning application for the New Farm West waste plant beside the A14 at Hemingford Abbots.

But the proposed development has angered people living in the Hemingfords who have set up an action group to contest the move over concerns about its effect on the community.

Villagers campaigned against an earlier plan to turn the former golf course into a museum featuring a recreation of the First World War training camp.

But Mick George Ltd said there would be “minimal impact” from the development.

More details of the proposed recycling centre have emerged because Huntingdonshire District Council is to consider whether it will handle parts of any future planning application or pass the whole scheme on to Cambridgeshire County Council which deals with waste issues.

The district is expected to delegate authority to the county at a meeting of its development management committee on March 19.

A report to the committee said they were expecting an application “shortly” for the recycling scheme which was likely to include a building of more than 38,000 sqm, covering 22 per of the site, for storage, segregation, shredding, baling and bulking of waste, overnight parking for up to 85 heavy goods vehicles and up to 120 other vehicles driven by the 150 people who would work there, 85 of whom would be lorry drivers.

There would be topsoil storage, concrete batching, aggregate bagging, storage of aggregates and soils and metal recycling and salvage.

The scheme is likely to include screening mounds of just over 16ft and 13ft high.

Paul Smith, of the Hemingfords Action Group, said it was difficult to comment without seeing the full plan, but added: “It has been used for a golf course and people do not want to see it developed into anything other than a recreational facility.”

The impact of increasing traffic was one of the reasons villagers objected to the golf course being turned into a First World War training camp replica, complete with trenches.

Jon Stump, finance director at Mick George Ltd, said: “All of the environmental appraisals have been complete, and these conclude that there would be minimal impact from the development proposals.

“The application will be submitted shortly, and the company wish to emphasise that a vast majority of the material to be handled at the site will be “commodities”, such as paper, card and plastics. There are no proposals to handle “black bag” or putrescible waste.”