Heysham energy-from-waste plant to win council backing

Veolia is set to secure the support of Lancashire County Council to build an energy-from-waste  plant in Heysham on a site that has been promoted for development for more than a decade.

The proposed plant will have a power generation capacity of 34MW, enough to support 60,000 homes. It is set to run on a 24-hour basis with waste transported to the site seven days a week, generating 216 HGV movements a day. Fletcher Rae is the architect.

It is to be located on a 10-acre plot off Imperial Road, linked to the A683, and part of the wider Heysham Gateway area. This site has a long industrial history having first been used as a factory during World War Two, and a chemical works up until the late 1980s.

Lancaster City Council and Lancashire County Council have been promoting the plot for waste management and power generation use for some time, with planning permission granted in 2005 for a waste technology park. Part of this permission was implemented with a waste transfer station now operational at the southern part of the site.

The plans were first mooted by Veoila in 2018 and are now set to be endorsed by the county council, which has been recommended to approve the scheme at a meeting next week.

Officers argued that given the site already had an established use for waste management, a precedent was well established.

On the plant’s appearance, officers said: “The proposal does include a very large structure that would be visible within the landscape from both local and more distant elevated viewpoints. However, given the context of existing industrial structures and energy related development, it is considered that the development would not be incongruous.

“Furthermore, local views would be restricted from many locations given the low-lying nature of the site and areas of trees and hedges.

“The treatment of the external finish of the buildings has evolved through the determination process to ensure that the development would be integrated into the landscape in the most effective way such that there would be no significant landscape or visual impacts.”

Assessment from The Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Natural England also found it would be “unlikely” there would be major impacts on protected species from the development.

The plans will be discussed by the county council at a meeting on 16 October, with the recommendation to grant permission dependent on a Section 106 agreement, featuring a £145,000 contribution towards cycle and footpath provision.

The plant is expected to take three years to build with 350 construction jobs to be created.

Consultants advising Veolia on its application include Fichtner, AOC, Hydrock, Axis, and Argus Ecology.