Campaigners reiterate opposition to Newtownabbey incinerator plans

No-Arc21, a community group established to campaign against plans for a £240m residual waste incinerator at the Hightown Quarry site, made its views clear to the department’s director of regional planning policy, Alistair Beggs.

The group has voiced concern around the impact the plant would have on the volume of traffic in the area, over health and safety and cost since the plans were first put forward a decade ago.

The proposed project is designed to deal with waste from a significant portion of the population and includes mechanical and biological treatment, energy from waste thermal treatment and incinerator bottom ash treatment facilities, plus a refuse derived fuel bale storage building and an administration/visitor centre.

arc21, the umbrella waste management group for six councils in the east of Northern Ireland, had proposed to construct the facility on the Boghill Road in Mallusk, but the plans were refused in March 2022 by the then Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon.

Citing the 5,000 objections to the proposals, she said the facility could result in an increased market for waste disposal and discourage recycling.

The Department for Infrastructure (DfI) announced in September 2017 that full planning permission had been granted for the facility at the Hightown Quarry site. However, in 2018 the Court of Appeal ruled that Stormont officials did not have the legal authority to grant permission for the facility.

This summer, the former DfI minister’s decision to refuse the planning application was set to be judicially reviewed by arc21 and Indaver, the European waste management company proposing to build the infrastructure, at a hearing listed for the first week of June.

However, in court on May 31, it emerged that officials running the Department for Infrastructure in the absence of a Stormont Executive were not going to contest the legal challenge. It was for this reason that No-Arc21 and its political allies sought an urgent meeting with the Department.

Commenting after the recent meeting, which was also attended by elected representatives from the DUP, UUP, Sinn Féin, SDLP and Alliance, Colin Buick, No-Arc21 chairman, said: “We strongly disagreed with the decision by the DfI to concede to the quashing of the decision of the former Minister Nichola Mallon to refuse the arc21 planning application.

“It was for this reason we demanded an urgent meeting with the Department; to reiterate the long list of reasons given for the refusal decision, supported by widespread objection from thousands of local people and those elected from across the political spectrum in Northern Ireland to represent them.”

He added the group will continue to “fight against this proposal until the right outcome is once again achieved; that is, the categorical refusal of planning permission” for the incinerator.