NORTHWICH MP Mike Amesbury has repeated his opposition to a waste incinerator expansion plan while insisting the operator must use rail and not road for deliveries.

Lostock Sustainable Energy Plant (LSEP) is under construction after being granted planning permission on appeal in 2012.

But the Weaver Vale MP is against LSEP’s plan to ramp up the amount of waste handled to 728,000 tonnes – an increase of more than 20 per cent compared with the original scheme.

And he wants Transport Secretary Grant Shapps to intervene by making the railway network available for waste deliveries to take the pressure off local roads.

Cheshire Anti-Incinerator Network (CHAIN) understands the number of lorries needed to service the plant already stands at 262 per day, which would rise to 434 if Government gives the green light to the expansion.

That would mean a total of 1,200 HGVs per day using Griffiths Road to service all the waste plants earmarked for the site.

The Labour MP said: "I expect the Government to do the right thing and put an end to the expansion.

"This just goes against the grain when we are transitioning towards a cleaner and greener, carbon neutral economy.

"What kind of a life are local residents going to have with up 1,200 lorries per day trundling down Griffiths Road when you consider road safety, noise disturbance and the impact on air quality?

"I have tabled a series of questions to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps as it would make a lot more sense for the plant, at the size originally agreed, to be serviced by the existing rail infrastructure to alleviate at least some of the traffic."

LSEP has said it is ‘looking at opportunities to use non-road transport options for waste delivery’ but the MP said that option needs to be set in stone.

Ward councillor Sam Naylor (Lab, Northwich Witton) agrees.

He said: "We need to nail them down on that and I have asked for a meeting.

"The original plan back in 2011 was that two-thirds of the waste would come in by rail but it soon became ‘we’re sorry, we’re going to use the roads’.”