MORE than 80 lorry journeys a day could be added to Bicester’s ring road after a shock U-turn over plans for an Incinerator.

Plans to site a burner in Calvert, nine miles east of Bicester, have been backed by Buckinghamshire County Council.

To avoid as many villages as possible, the scheme, by the Waste Recycling Group (WRG), would involve household waste being taken along the M40 to junction nine, and east of Bicester on the A41.

The council backed a plan by Covanta Energy for Stewartby in Bedfordshire in September 2009 but reopened discussions with WRG six months later.

It said a “commercial issue” had arisen with the Covanta bid but said it could not elaborate further because of legal issues.

Jon O’Neill, chairman of Ardley Against the Incinerator, said: “It’s terrible news for Bicester – it has the real potential of being in an incinerator sandwich.

“All the recycling rates are up and the waste produced by households is down.

“You are telling me within a radius of 15 miles there is a need for two incinerators burning 600,000 tonnes of waste, plus the landfill that will carry on. Surely this should start to ring alarm bells at the Government department that looks at all of these things.”

The Calvert burner would take 300,000 tonnes of household waste a year from towns including High Wycombe and Aylesbury. It comes a month after an incinerator plan for Ardley, north west of Bicester, was approved by Oxfordshire County Council. A similar plan was refused in 2009.

The Calvert plan would see 84 lorry trips around Bicester to a site at Greatmoor Farm. It would need to get planning permission.

Maggi Campbell Keith, spokesman for action group Stop Aylesbury Vale Incinerator, which opposed the Calvert plan, said: “We said Bicester would be the filling in a very nasty sandwich, and this has moved a step closer.”

But Martin Tett, Buckinghamshire County Council’s cabinet member for planning and environment, said the incinerator was needed to avoid rising landfill taxes. He said: “I am confident that the energy from waste solution proposed by WRG is in the best interest of our council taxpayers.”

WRG projects director John Plantsaid: “We believe that our proposal for a facility at the Calvert landfill site is both a cost effective and sustainable option for managing Buckinghamshire’s residual waste.”