ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners are urging councillors in York to withdraw the city from a controversial multi-million pound waste incinerator scheme before it is too late.

The project, at Allerton Park, near Knaresborough, is set to cost £1.4 billion, but looked doomed when last year the Government withdrew funding.

North Yorkshire County councillors agreed to push on with the project at an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday, when a group of 38 members approved its 25-year plan with AmeyCespa and City of York Council to create electricity by burning household waste at a site beside the A1(M).

But campaigners are now urging City of York Council, which is a smaller partner in the deal, to pull out.

Richard Lane, from York Residents Against Incineration, said: “We still hope councillors in York will be able to look critically at this.”

A decision to progress with the incinerator project was approved by York’s cabinet earlier this month, but the project faces a final hurdle when it has to get the backing of full council – where the ruling Labour group no longer have an overall majority – on October 9.

Mr Lane added: “North Yorkshire needs this more than York because they have not got any other plan for waste.

“But in York, waste has been falling so rapidly that we do not need this totally panicked solution, and look for something more affordable and clever.

“We have been saddled with this monster of a scheme, which we do not really need, and we have not really been offered any alternatives because councillors have been led by their officers.”

Among North Yorkshire campaigners the mood is more defeated.

North Yorkshire Waste Action Group’s Bob Schofield said: “We are meeting on Monday to discuss this decision, but I don’t think there’s anything else we can do.

“North Yorkshire County Council’s decision is not entirely unexpected, because they have been behind this from day one, but today is a black day for council tax payers in North Yorkshire.”

The next decision on the project will be taken at a full meeting of City of York councillors on October 9, when campaigners are hoping councillors will vote to pull York out of it.