VILLAGERS have questioned the need for a giant slurry lagoon to store waste residue.

A row over recycling company Agrivert’s plans to create a pool, bigger than two football pitches, on land between Yarnton and Cassington is gathering momentum.

Cherwell District Council has granted Agrivert permission for the scheme, although Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has the final say as it is on Green Belt land.

Agrivert says it needs the pool to store the residue – known as digestate – left over from electricity produced by household food waste collected throughout Oxfordshire.

But villagers, who have formed a liaison committee, have queried why the company did not apply for the 172 metres long by 60 metres wide lagoon before the £9m digester plant came into operation in October last year.

Yarnton resident Simon Eaton said: “We were not at all against the digester when it was first suggested. But we understood then that the digestate would be sold to farmers and there would be no storage on the site.”

Michael Gibbard, Yarnton resident and local councillor, said: “At one stage Agrivert definitely said they needed the lagoon because they couldn’t move the digestate quickly enough to farmers.”

Agrivert commercial director Harry Waters denied the company was having trouble selling on the waste, which can be used as fertiliser.

He said: “There is sufficient demand for our digestate from farmers.”

But Mr Gibbard asked: “So why do they need a slurry lagoon to store it?”

A meeting of company representatives, villagers, and Environment Agency staff took place last week.

The digester, between the A40 Oxford-Witney road and the Cotswold Line railway, distils food waste and burns off the resulting methane to produce electricity, which is sold to the National Grid.

The company says the digester produces enough electricity to power 4,000 homes, and the cost to tax payers is half that of dumping such waste in landfill.

Mr Waters said: “We need a slurry lagoon because we now want to store it on our own farm, which we have on long-term lease, rather than deliver it to customer farmers’ lagoons as we originally planned.”

Agricultural contractor RC Baker, of Barford St Michael, is among firms which have been using the digestate.

Managing director Charles Baker said: “Over the last year we have been trialling the digestate.

“We are very impressed with the field trials, which have resulted in impressive crop yields.”