9:50am Sunday 30th November 2008
By Emily Allen
Campaigners fighting to throw out controversial plans for a £1bn incinerator on their doorstep want 20,000 residents across south Oxfordshire to sign an online petition.
Action group Sutton Courtenay Against the Incinerator (SCAI) has set up the petition at www.scai.co.uk to drum up opposition to the waste burner proposed in the village, claiming it could cause harmful pollution.
Oxfordshire County Council, the waste disposal authority, is looking to build an incinerator capable of burning 300,000 tonnes of waste a year, at Sutton Courtenay landfill site, or at Ardley, near Bicester.
The Waste Recycling Group, the company behind the south Oxfordshire facility, will submit its planning application early next year when County Hall will make its decision.
SCAI will also present its petition at the same time. So far 1,400 people have signed online, with another 2,000 names collected on paper.
Father-of-one Callum MacKenzie, of Drayton Road, Sutton Courtenay, has given up his job as an artist to concentrate on the campaign.
He said: “We want people to sign the petition to try and influence the planning councillors next year.
“Signing the petition gives people the chance to go on our website where we’ve put a lot of information on the incinerator together to help them make an informed decision.
“We feel it is crucially important all local residents understand the risks involved with incinerators.”
The campaigners are concerned that no independent study into the health issues involved in incineration has been carried out, and no study is planned on the cumulative health and environmental impact of building an incinerator on a landfill site.
They also claim incineration can cause air pollution up to 12 miles away, and that there alternatives to incineration.
Several hundred people from Appleford signed a petition against the plans, presented to county councillors three months ago.
Mr MacKenzie said: “About 97 per cent of the population of Culham have opposed it and we are currently collating the results for Sutton Courtenay.”
The county council’s head of sustainable development, Chris Cousins, said: "We will of course gladly study the objections raised by local people and are, in any case, obliged to do so as part of the planning process.
“As regards health issues, the county council will rely on the expert bodies with statutory responsibility to advise on the control of emissions and the health effects.
“The appropriate bodies are the Environment Agency and the Health Protection Agency.
“Currently they advise that incinerators are safe.
“If campaigners believe they have real published and peer reviewed evidence that runs contrary to current advice they must approach the Health Protection Agency and the Environment Agency with that evidence."
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