Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has issued Hertfordshire County Council with a holding order on its plans for an energy from waste facility.
The council gave planning permission to Veolia Environmental Services last month for a 26MW energy from waste facility at Barnfield, near Hatfield.
Following the granting of planning permission by the council, it had to be referred to the Communities Secretary and he has now issued this holding order before deciding whether to call it in.
County Councillors voted 11 to four in favour of granting consent, leading to local MP and Conservative Party Chairman Grant Shapps to write to Eric Pickles asking him to call in the planning proposals for the facility for further scrutiny.
At the time, responding to the decision by the council to issue planning permission, Grant Shapps said: “Recycling rates in Welwyn Hatfield have already exceeded the rates they thought they would be in 2020 and that is going to be replicated across Hertfordshire.
“This isn’t the end of the road. I have already written to the Secretary of State asking him to call in the decision and look at it again.
“Even after that, the New Barnfield Trust has raised £60,000 to fight this at judicial review because we think that the process itself has been faulty.”
Prime Minister David Cameron this week said in a speech to the CBI annual conference that the Government intended to make it more difficult for organisations to instigate a judicial review including reducing the appeals process from four stages to two.
