Announcements

A CAMPAIGN group set up to fight plans for a £100m Incinerator in Oxfordshire is to be disbanded.

Ardley Against the Incinerator (AAI) spent three years opposing an Oxfordshire County Council plan to build an incinerator burning up to 300,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste a year.

But in November the group lost a final legal bid at the Royal Courts of Justice, London.

Core members of the group will now have to pick up the final bill for legal expenses of about £7,000. AAI spent a total of £57,000 on its legal case alone.

Chairman Jon O’Neill said: “Over £60,000 has been spent in funding the campaign. The final step in the legal challenge was expedited and did not allow time for funds to be raised to cover it.

“We would like to use this opportunity to publicly thank all those that have supported us — not just from Oxfordshire, but across the whole of the UK.”

He added: “While disappointed not to have won its campaign, AAI and its many supporters can be satisfied all was done to try to prevent this facility being built.”

Waste firm Viridor was chosen as the preferred bidder to build and run the incinerator, at Ardley Fields, Ardley, near Bicester.

Building work is expected to start imminently, with the plant up and running by late 2014.