Hightown incinerator plan: '˜Councillors must not be swayed by NIMBYs'

Following your headline story this week - '˜Councillors urged to reject £240m Hightown waste incinerator plan' - I felt a duty to respond.
Robert HillRobert Hill
Robert Hill

I would urge councillors to listen to the facts and refuse to be swayed by a few, but very verbal NIMBYs, nor by orders from their senior party members.

This is a very important decision for Newtownabbey; it could bring much needed jobs, free or subsidised electricity for local homes and businesses and most of all an end to the main blight for people in the area, landfill.

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The landfill site currently there brings smells, flies, rats and excess wind blown rubbish.

An efficient Energy from Waste plant, as proposed, hidden in an old quarry, can eliminate all these local problems in a short time.

I again urge councillors to listen to the facts and ignore rumour and party diktats.

Robert Hill, UKIP representative for South Antrim

• Editor’s note: The arc21 Energy from Waste plant proposal for Hightown Quarry is not connected to Biffa Waste’s landfill operation at The Cottonmount. While an EfW plant does use waste incineration to produce energy, some types of waste will still have to be sent to landfill.

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Those behind the arc21 project don’t claim that the project will provide homes and businesses with free electricity. According to arc21 and Becon, the 14MW of power produced by the EfW plant would be exported to the national grid.