AFTER a string of applications for controversial waste plants in mid-Cheshire, the Cheshire West and Chester Council has finally agreed to review its planning policy – but activists fear it’s too little, too late.

In 2007, Cheshire County Council’s Waste Local Plan (WLP) identified a selection of sites from across Cheshire as being suitable places for an incinerator – including land off Griffiths Road in Lostock; Cledford Lane, in Middlewich and Winsford Industrial Estate.

Many claimed this served as an ‘open invitation’ to companies to put in plans to develop the sites, even if they were not going to treat Cheshire’s waste.

And despite CWACs announcement that it is under review, all current applications will be unaffected, meaning there is every possibility that thermal waste treatment plants could be built in Middlewich, Lostock and Wincham, as well as Runcorn and Ince Marshes.

CHAIN spokesman Liam Byrne said: “We do feel angry. Our chairman, Brian Cartwright, has been pointing the dangers out since the plan was first created. But thankfully the council are finally addressing it.”

Rudheath parish councillor Tony Lawrenson added: “It will put us in a toxic cluster and there is no research for that kind of thing. There is no such cluster anywhere in Europe so what the effects will be, no-one knows.”

Clr Mark Stocks, chairman of Cheshire West and Chester Council’s local development framework panel – which advises the council on waste disposal – said the existing plan will remain until the new policies are completed which could take three years..

He said: “It’s recognition that we are not happy with the Waste Local Plan and the effect it is having.

“This won’t affect the current applications – they will still have to be dealt with but two of the sites are not in the local plan anyway and that can be used against them by anyone who is opposing them.

“We want to put a new plan in place as soon as we can but there’s a structured process we have to go through.

“We will be re-assessing our waste management needs and taking our own view on the number, scale and type of new waste management facilities that will be needed in our area.”