Minister intervenes to halt permit approvals for waste incinerators

A rarely used Whitehall intervention has seen all permit approvals for new waste incinerators halted until at least 24 May, including one that is the subject of a threatened judicial review by a council.

Environment minister Sir Mark Spencer has issued a ministerial direction to the Environment Agency that bars it from decisions on environmental permits for waste incinerators and from determining whether any new application have been duly made.

Ministerial directions are normally used where a minister wants a department to do something to which its permanent secretary objects.

Environment Secretary Steve Barclay has recused himself from decisions about a live application for a permit by developer MVV for an incinerator at Wisbech - in his North East Cambridgeshire constituency - where Mr Barclay has expressed strong opposition to the project.

In a letter to the Environment Agency, Sir Mark said: “This applies to proposed developments that do not yet hold an environmental permit for waste incineration, regardless of whether they hold planning permission from the relevant planning authority.”

He said direction would be in force until 24 May, though could be withdrawn earlier, and was intended to “allow a short period for Defra officials to lead a piece of work considering the role of waste incineration in the management of residual wastes in England”.

The Wisbech incinerator was given consent by the Planning Inspectorate and this was confirmed by Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho after a confused period in which the documentation was temporally removed from the Planning Inspectorate's website before being restored.

Jacob Hayler, executive director of waste industry body the Environmental Services Association, said: “The instruction by Defra to pause the determination of environmental permits for vital, high-performing, infrastructure is both out-of-the-blue and raises procedural questions that are likely to impact business confidence in the UK.”

Hayler said a study of the capacity of incinerators had been in progress for some time at Defra and Sir Mark’s intervention “appears to be an unnecessary and unwelcome piece of political theatre”.

Fenland District Council has applied for judicial review of Coutinho’s decision to grant consent for the Wisbech incinerator, “following a unanimous vote at a meeting of Fenland's full council”, a statement said.

It has an ally in Mr Barclay, who has written in a local magazine Discovering Wisbech: “I was as shocked and angry as constituents when the news came through that the Planning Inspectorate’s recommendation has been accepted. It is a flawed project located on an unsuitable site.”