2,000 urged to oppose waste plant in Huntington

Its author, MP Gavin Williamson, spoke of the urgency to get objections in by this Saturday, the deadline for public consultation.

In a rallying call at a public meeting at the weekend, he called the application to build an anaerobic digester in Huntington 'an absolutely obscene plan'. The scheme was approved three years ago but no building work took place. Now a bid to extend planning permission for a further three years has been submitted to Staffordshire County Council by HE?Humphries Ltd in Tipton.

Mr Williamson said: "We've got to encourage everyone in every street to write in because if we don't, they will say we don't care.

"We live in one of the most beautiful areas in the country. We have a duty to get this ridiculous proposal thrown out." Residents are angry over proposals for the scheme in Cocksparrow Lane, on the site of the former Littleton Colliery.

Almost 50 people voiced their feelings at the meeting at Huntington community hall.

Resident Ron Kenyon, aged 69, of Bracken Road, said the plant would bring no jobs. "We once had a pit that employed 2,400 people but pumped out a lot of grime and dust," he said.

"That's gone and people are happier. Now we've got the prospect of this digester in its place bringing no employment to the village, only smells."

And he warned that the development could lead to people being injured along Cocksparrow Lane, which he described as a rat run between the A34 and A5.

Alan Beech, chairman of Huntington Parish Council, said the tragedy in Texas, where a fertiliser plant exploded last week destroying scores of homes and killing 14 people, could happen in Huntington.

"We have a primary school even nearer to our site than the one in America," he said.