CAMPAIGNERS have thwarted plans to dump London’s rubbish on their doorstep and have hailed it as a “triumph for democracy”.

After passionate pleas, Oxfordshire County Councillors ignored their officers’ recommendations and threw out a bid to build a new £20m waste treatment plant between Sutton Courtenay and Appleford.

But the committee has approved plans for a new £3m “superdump” in Kidlington and the downgrading of the Redbridge site which will become ‘trade only’ during weekdays.

At Sutton Courtnenay the Waste Recycling Group (WRG) wanted to build a biological treatment facility on the landfill site off the B4016 to process 220,000 tonnes of rubbish every year.

The meeting heard the plan would increase the amount of waste coming to the site from 600,000 to 905,000 tonnes a year and extend site activities until at least 2036.

But the council said there was no need for the 26,800 m sq facility, which would have been the size of five football pitches.

Sutton Courtenay campaigner Dr Pauline Wilson said: “I am delighted that yet again, despite all our worries, local democracy has triumphed.”

Campaigners said the plant would only process waste from Berkshire and West London, as a huge incinerator to be built in Ardley is likely to deal with Oxfordshire rubbish.

WRG applied to build the Sutton Courtenay facility after its bid for an incinerator was rejected in 2009. But the council’s planning and regulations committee yesterday rejected its latest plan by a majority of nine to four.

Gervase Duffield, Vale of White Horse District Council member for Sutton Courtenay and Appleford, warned councillors the plant would turn the area in to “a huge regional waste site”.

He said: “The only benefit is to the applicant and their shareholders.”

Appleford Parish Council member Angela Jones told councillors: “This would overpower and dominate our village for the next 25 years.”

Committee member John Tanner, who is also the city councillor responsible for waste in Oxford, said: “I have heard some very eloquent speeches from the local community and I think they are right.”

But WRG’s planning and estates manager Alan Bulpin added: “Appeal is an option open to us.”

In Kidlington, the county council hopes the recycling centre “superdump” off Langford Lane, will be open by summer next year.

It will be built on greenbelt farmland between Oxford Spires Business Park and Langford Meadows Wildlife Site.

Once complete, it will serve Oxford. The current Redbridge facility will close for refurbishment and reopen as trade-only, with residents limited to weekend use.

In March, the county backtracked on plans to make the Redbridge site completely trade-only.

An equally controversial plan was to stop taking general waste at any of the sites except for the new Kidlington site, but this was also dropped.

That had been aimed at reducing landfill but met with stiff opposition from the public.

The county plans to close four waste recycling sites at Ardley, Dean, Alkerton, and Stanford in the Vale in a bid to save about £750,000.

In addition to the new site at Kidlington, a replacement site will be opened in Banbury.

* Plans to create a waste soil screening operation at Swannybrook Farm in Kingston Bagpuize were also approved at the meeting, despite concerns being raised about noise and traffic.