SUGAR beet processing could be returning to North Yorkshire for the first time since 2007 as a Middle Eastern sugar giant plans to create up to 300 jobs with a new 24-hour plant.

The proposals by Dubai-based Al Khaleej International, reported in The Press last week, would mark a return for the sugar processing industry, which once employed more than 100 people at York’s British Sugar Factory in Poppleton.

While the former site lies dormant in the midst of unresolved housing plans a decade after the factory’s closure, 15 miles west a new lies a new site, earmarked to replicate British Sugar’s work in a new state-of-art plant next to the new Allerton Waste Recovery Park off the A1 near Knaresborough.

A scoping report, issued by Al Khaleej International to Harrogate Borough Council, ahead of submitting a full planning application, reveals the new plant will process 24,000 to 36,000 tonnes of sugar beet per day during the harvest season (September to March), with a 24 hour a day warehouse and packaging operations.

The plant would produce 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes of refined sugar every day off the back of 24/7 deliveries at a proposed rate of one load per minute for the full operating period.

Al Khaleej International states the construction of the proposed development would be undertaken over a period of approximately two years, starting in early 2018, and would be commissioned in 2020, with business starting on site by September of that year.

As well as the 200 to 300 promised jobs, the operation would bring an economic boost to the region’s farming industry as the new site would involve a supply chain of around 3,500 British farmers in the sourcing of sugar beet from a large area of predominantly North East England.

For many years, sugar beet was a very popular crop with Yorkshire farmers, who supplied British Sugar’s York plant before it closed in 2007. Since then fewer growers have been able to supply the next nearest plant at Newark in Nottinghamshire.

NFU regional sugar beet chairman Chris Durdy, who farms at Tickhill, near Doncaster, said access to a new plant would be good news for the region’s arable farmers, many of whom had struggled to find a successful “break crop” to replace sugar beet in their growing rotation.

He said: “It was a major blow to Yorkshire when we lost our sugar factory.

“Most farmers sought to replace sugar beet with oil seed rape, but for many it did not prove a very successful alternative – especially on lighter soils.

“I’m sure the announcement that sugar processing may make a return to our region will be warmly welcomed, providing an alternative market for Yorkshire grown beet.

“It is great to see such a major investment planned for our part of the world as it would represent a major ‘shot in the arm’ for the local farming community as well as providing hundreds of jobs locally.”

A British Sugar newsletter, published in 2001 on the factory’s 75th anniversary, reveals the sugar trade in York dates back more than 300 years.

Archaeologists excavating on the banks of the River Ouse in 1983 uncovered the remains of an early, 300-year-old sugar refinery

The sugar factory that was to be such a landmark in York for more than 80 years was itself built by the Second AngloScottish Beet Sugar Corporation in 1926 to serve the farming community around Poppleton.

The new factory had a slicing capacity of 1,000 tons a day when it opened in 1926, and processed 54,703 tons of sugar beet in its first operating year.

Yorkshire farmers were at first reluctant to embrace sugar beet as a crop. During the 1930s, however, farmers began to take to the crop, and sugar production at Poppleton rapidly increased. It continued throughout the war years, when the York factory and other factories between them produced the equivalent of an eight-ounce ration of sugar a week for every inhabitant of the UK.

In 1940, the factory’s role was expanded to include packaging, then in 1950, the Anglo-Scottish Beet Sugar Corporation began a five-year, £9 million modernisation of all its factories, including York - and in 1956, the York factory pioneered the move into bulk sugar storage with the creation of the corporation’s first concrete silos: two 120ft-tall towers.

As the factory grew, so did York. By 1962, the factory had become part of York’s urban sprawl - and the Poppleton area of Boroughbridge Road became officially a part of the city. On April 1 that year, the plant was officially named the York Sugar Factory.

NFU Sugar board chairman Michael Sly said: “Proposals for a new sugar beet processing facility in North Yorkshire are welcome news for the industry.

“Farmers in the region were disappointed when the British Sugar factory closed in 2007 and it is encouraging that investors are considering a new, larger plant in the area.

“It would be the first sugar beet factory built in the UK for 90 years and represents a considerable vote of confidence for the sector.

“The sugar beet industry makes an important contribution to the rural economy, supporting nearly 10,000 jobs across the country, and is a valuable rotation crop for arable farmers.”

In its report issued to Harrogate Borough Council, Al Khaleej International has outlined an overview of the refining process to be undertaken at the new plant, including the use of waste heat from the neighbouring Allerton Waste Recovery Park instead of installing boilers on site.

The processes to be undertaken at the site are:

- Beet Preparation: On delivery the beet is sampled, transported by conveyors and cleaned. The beet is then washed, cleaned and sliced to allow for extraction. Leaves, soil and stones are separated. The stones are saleable as a co-product, often to the construction industry. The soil is saleable as topsoil to agricultural land for land reclamation.

- Sugar Extraction: The sugar is dissolved from the beet. The intention is that the plant would use waste heat from the adjacent Energy from Waste (EfW) recovery plant. The remaining beet slices are pressed and dried for sale as beet pulp and back loaded into outgoing trucks, to minimise truck movements.

- Juice Purification: Lime is added to remove impurities from the diffusion juice. The lime is removed by filtration, dried and recycled as agricultural lime and back loaded into outgoing trucks to minimise truck movements.

- Juice Concentration: Water is removed from the sugar solution in successive evaporation vessels to produce a viscous syrup. The evaporation pans will be heated with the waste steam currently from the adjacent EfW, allowing the factory to run without a boiler and the consequent emissions (a standby boiler is likely to be necessary for occasional short-term use).

- Crystallisation: Sugar crystals are separated by centrifuging and sieved before storage. The remaining syrup (molasses) will be sold as high grade animal feed.

- Storage, Packaging and Warehousing: Final Grade sugar is produced and put onto intermediate storage on site which feeds into the packaging operation. The final product is stored in warehouses from where it is distributed to customers.