Residents urged to voice waste energy plant concerns

Retired business man Dougi McKeown, of Beechfield Park, close to the site, says he is very concerned and is calling on other local people to express their views about the application by BioGen Power before February 8.

Mr McKeown, a grandfather of one, says people are not aware of what they could be breathing in if this application is given the green light.

He explained: “Does anyone know what sort of plant this is exactly going to be? There seems to be complete and utter secrecy around it and why are we not being told?

“Does anyone know what problems could arise if something goes wrong? If they do they’re not telling us.

“People must contact the Planning Service by February 8 to lodge their concerns.”

Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson said he has been contacted by a number of residents in the Moira Road area about the potential impact of this proposed plant.

He said he shared their concerns aand had conveyed these to the Planning Service.

“It is important that these concerns are fully considered by the planners before any further decisions are made about this proposed development” he said. “I would encourage local residents, if they have not already done so, to respond to the planning service with their concerns. I am happy to receive such representations and to pass them on to the Planning Service before the deadline.”

Lisburn City Council this week stressed it has no direct involvement with the development and has consistently called for a Public Inquiry into the proposals.

A spokesperson said: “The Council is a statutory consultee in relation to all local Planning Applications made to the Department of the Environment, Planning Service. It is the Department of the Environment, Planning Service who have responsibility for approval or refusal any Planning Application

“In April 2010, at the monthly meeting of its Planning Committee the Council stated that the application should be referred to the Planning Appeals Commission under Article 31 of the Planning (NI) Order and that a Public Inquiry should be undertaken.”

They continued: “The Council has consistently believed that this application requires consideration of all significant environmental issues of public interest and that a Public Inquiry is the best means to ensure that the views of all parties are fully considered.

“In conclusion, the Council would encourage any members of the public with concerns to express their views through the Planning Service’s consultation process.”

When the application was first lodged a spokesman for BioGen Power said the company’s facilities treat municipal and commercial waste.

He said: “BioGen Power is the UK’s largest and fastest growing renewable energy company in the UK using Advanced Conversion technology (ACT) to treat non hazardous waste.”

He said the firm uses ‘modern and well proven gasification and pyrolysis technology to dispose of waste’.

“The technology utilised by BioGen Power and proposed for our facility at Lisburn has over 450,000 hours of successful operational uptime” he said.

The spokesman said gasification was not incineration.

“Rather, we use a partial combustion process which creates a gas rather than smoke, there are few emissions (emissions are generally less than 10% of EU permitted levels). The gas is then used to heat water in a conventional boiler, raising steam which then drives a steam turbine that produces low carbon renewable electricity, just like a power station, though far cleaner and greener.

“Instead of generating electricity by using our limited and valuable fossil fuels, we use waste to make energy.”