The Secretary of State refuses application from Lostock Sustainable Energy Plant Ltd

Cheshire West and Chester Council has received confirmation that their objections about the Lostock Sustainable Energy Plant Ltd (LSEP Ltd) application to the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy have been successful.

Councillor Louise Gittins, Leader of the Council, wrote to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in December 2021 to express the Council’s concerns about the application to increase the consented annual waste fuel throughput of the LSEP from 600,000 to 728,000 tonnes per annum. The application also asked to increase the HGV waste delivery movements and the weekday waste delivery hours. 

The Secretary of State considered the views of the Council as the planning authority, along with the many other submitted views

Councillor Gittins said: “This is a victory for local people, who put forward strong arguments about the impact on their community, and the local councillors who represented them so effectively. We are delighted that our objections have now prevented the application that would have added further pollution and congestion on local roads and be in direct opposition to our commitment to the declared climate emergency.

“The Government granted planning permission for the construction of the Lostock Sustainable Energy Plant. We stressed to the Secretary of State that the additional application should be refused considering the huge impact this facility already has and continues to have on our residents.” 

Consent has been refused for the Application after considering the planning balance and the significant harms highlighted.  The Secretary of State has added that no further information is required to enable him to take a decision on the Application and that it would not, therefore, be appropriate to cause a discretionary public inquiry to be held into the Application.

The Council asked the Secretary of State to reconsider the terms of the LSEP Ltd operating licence, highlighting the following points:

• It is scientifically proven that the burning of plastic produces more CO₂ per kWhr than any other fuel (Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark)
• Other, more sustainable, technologies for waste processing are becoming available such as anaerobic digestion or hydrogenation. This should reduce our reliance on such technologies as those under consideration here. We should be looking to invest elsewhere and not expand the capacity of such facilities.
• The LSEP facility plays no part in The Council’s own waste processing plans.
• LSEP Ltd are a Danish company, but their technology has been banned in Denmark because of the levels of particulates, and other pollutants.
• Transport has been permitted by road but there is a perfectly serviceable railhead at this site.
• The road network into and out of the Lostock site cannot cope with the planned extra traffic and will make life miserable for residents living close by in addition to the generation of extra CO₂ and particulate matter.
• Incineration is harmful to the circular economy and damages efforts to produce less packaging and more sustainable or biodegradable packaging; and
• The licence to operate at this site runs contrary to our declared climate emergency and we would urge the Secretary of State to reconsider the LSEP Ltd operating licence and to oppose any future operational expansion should the company apply in the future.