THE first stages of a recruitment drive to fill 70 full time positions is getting underway as North Yorkshire's new waste treatment facility starts to take shape.

Since construction began early in 2015, facilities management firm Amey has reported work is "progressing well" at Allerton Waste Recovery Park – the new waste treatment facility for the City of York, with the company gearing up to start recruiting for the site, which when fully operational, will create 70 full time positions.

Mark James, construction manager at Allerton Waste Recovery Park, said: "2015 was a busy year which saw the facility really starting to take shape.

"The rest of 2016 will see us continue with the construction of the main building and the installation of the waste processing equipment.

"Throughout the construction, we are focusing on sustainability, for example by producing the majority of concrete on site and keeping the material excavated when we dug the bunkers for use in landscaping around the facility.

"Later this year we will be starting to recruit for our permanent operational roles."

Amey is hosting an information session on Wednesday June 8, from 2pm to 8pm at the Best Western Hotel in Boroughbridge.

Initially recruitment will be for team leaders, an assistant maintenance manager and engineer, compliance manager and assistant operations manager, however information will be available about other roles due to be advertised next year.

Anyone interested in attending can find out more about the roles on offer, and register to attend by visiting www.amey.co.uk/joinusinyorkshire.

The construction team has worked for more than 550,000 hours and, at any one time, there can be around 350 people on site.

The first phase of work involved digging out more than 55,000 tonnes of earth to create two waste bunkers. The excavated material has been kept on site and will be used to landscape the site when construction is complete.

The bunkers were then lined, which involved pouring almost 8,000 tonnes of concrete in several phases. Most of the concrete used has been produced on site.

Work is also underway to construct the steel framework of the main buildings and install the processing equipment that will treat the waste and turn it into energy. The unit which will house the anaerobic digestion facility and the boilers for the energy from waste plant are currently being built on site.