Fenland councillors unanimously back bid to investigate legal challenge to Wisbech incinerator

Plans for a waste-to-energy incinerator in Fenland could face a fresh legal challenge after councillors unanimously agreed to investigate the viability of bringing a judicial review.

This would mean that the government’s decision to allow the £300m incinerator to be built in Wisbech would be looked at again by a court with the power to overturn it.

Last week, Secretary of State for Energy Claire Coutinho appeared to rubber stamp the plans, but her decision has since been pulled from the government’s website for “clarification”.

Nevertheless, Fenland District Council (FDC) is preparing for a possible legal battle councillors hope will block the incinerator which Medworth CHP Ltd has applied to build on an industrial estate on Algores Way.

At a meeting yesterday (Monday, 26th February), they voted to instruct their in-house legal team to investigate the likelihood the council would be successful in quashing the Secretary of State’s decision through a judicial review.

Cllr Steve Tierney (Conservatives, Wisbech South), who instigated the vote, said FDC “owe it to the people of Fenland” to “fight this to the very end”.

“We could still win; this isn’t over yet,” he added, on top of pledging £1,000 of his own cash towards paying for the judicial review if it goes ahead.

Cllr David Patrick (Independent, Wisbech Walsoken and Waterlees) said local campaigners have already begun fundraising towards the effort and have found five possible grounds for a judicial review.

These include “errors of fact regarding waste fuel availability” and “incorrectly treating the energy that would be exported as low carbon energy”, he said.

FDC leader Cllr Chris Boden (Conservatives, Whittlesey East and Villages) supported Cllr Tierney’s vote but urged his colleagues to be “realistic” about the council’s chance of success as Ms Coutinho’s decision will only be overturned if an error can be found that is so great it could have changed the original outcome.

Cllr Samantha Hoy (Conservatives, Wisbech South) said bringing a judicial review could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, but that FDC needs to send a message to government

“Don’t mess with us, because we aren’t going to take it,” she said, drawing a parallel with FDC’s unsuccessful legal bid to stop the government from housing asylum seekers in Wisbech’s Rose and Crown hotel.

Because of the scale of the incinerator project, the decision whether to grant planning permission was escalated from the local authority to the national Planning Inspectorate, which passed on its recommendations to the Secretary of State.

It was opposed not only by FDC, but also Cambridgeshire County Council, Norfolk County Council, the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk and Wisbech Town Council.

FDC councillors said they hoped other authorities would help fund a judicial review if it’s brought as the project, close to the border between Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, will have an impact on roads and other services in a wider area than just Wisbech.

The company behind the project, though, has previously said it’ll be a “good neighbour”, providing steam and electricity to surrounding homes and businesses.

Their incinerator would work by burning half a million tonnes of household waste each year, converting it into energy.

FDC has six weeks to decide whether to bring a judicial review.

A review can then take several months to complete.