Residents living near the proposed Winkleigh airfield site of the biomass plant ? which would be the largest of its kind in Europe ? packed the village hall last Thursday for a public meeting attended by Mr Burnett.
He told them he had waited two months to receive a reply from Energy Minister Stephen Timms, and even then he felt the answers to many of his questions were ?superficial?.
The Department of Trade and Industry has made a grant of £11.5-million available to Chumleigh-based Peninsula Power to develop a 23-megawatt biomass plant fuelled by locally grown energy crops, the first phase of which will cost £37-million.
Mr Burnett contacted the minister to raise his and constituents? concerns about the project. He said considering the size of the grant made, there was not enough information available about the experience and set-up of the firm behind the scheme, the type of technology proposed to be used and the availability of crops to feed the plant.
In his response to Mr Burnett?s letter, the minister stated: ?A full and credible planning application must be provided before the grant can be accepted. Acceptance of the grant offer provides no guarantee that the project will obtain planning permission.?
He also said the grant offer to Peninsula Power was ?conditional?, and if these conditions were not met, the grant offer would ?lapse automatically?.
Roy Cooper, of the Winkleigh Society, said most villagers still felt left in the dark. ?We have got so little information from the promoters. They are just not telling us anything. We are not in the picture,? he said.
Steve Lee, who runs a business on Winkleigh Airfield, said he was concerned about the sheer volume of lorries which would come to and from the site, which could make the village an unsafe place for young children to play.
Mr Burnett said he believed there was a ?far more rigorous view? being taken of this proposal at Torridge District Council than had hitherto been the case.
He said he was not against renewable energy in principle, but the scheme had to be right for the area.
?Everyone in this room wants green energy, but we don?t want green energy that doesn?t work.?
Mr Burnett pointed to the example of a plant using the same technology in Vermont, in the US, which had now been mothballed, and the Arbre biomass plant in Yorkshire, which went into liquidation after just eight days of operation, which he described as a ?colossal failure?.
He warned residents that their strongest case against the proposed plant lay on scientific grounds, rather than concerns about smell or noise. ?If you go against this on NIMBY grounds, you will fail. The scientific points are strong enough.?
Mr Burnett said he hoped to set up a meeting in the autumn between Mr Timms and representatives of the village working party.
No representative from Peninsula Power attended the meeting but the company intend to issue a leaflet in the near future outlining the proposals in greater detail. Peninsula Power are expected to delay submitting a planning application to Torridge Council until November or December to allow full discussion of the scheme.