WEST Devon and Torridge MP Geoffrey Cox has applied for a special debate in the House of Commons regarding a ?grotesque? proposal to build a massive £43-million power plant on land at Winkleigh. Mr Cox is hoping the speaker will grant his request during the week of November 7 ? if not, the MP has pledged to take up the issue ?in other ways?. Mr Cox said he was ?dead against? the controversial scheme by Peninsula Power to build the biomass power plant on land at the disused Winkleigh Airfield. He said: ?It?s the wrong proposal in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don?t think any satisfactory answers have been produced by the developers to questions that have been asked of it. ?For example, how they are going to produce enough fuel for it, how it can be transported on heavy lorries through small villages. English Heritage is uneasy about it, English Nature has expressed opposition ? these are powerful objectors.? Mr Cox said the experimental technology proposed for the project, which would burn miscanthus grass to produce electricity, had never succeeded commercially anywhere else in the world. ?It?s a bit rich to ask the people of Winkleigh to be guinea pigs, to be a testing ground for something with no track record. You can?t resurrect a project in the teeth of such unanimous local feeling ? it would be grotesque for this to go ahead in my view.? Meanwhile, the response of Peninsula Power to queries raised by Torridge District Council is being made available as part of the lengthy consultation process into the planning application, which has attracted massive opposition from residents in the area. The new information deals with air quality, noise emissions and the growth of the main energy crop miscanthus, also known as elephant grass. It can be viewed at Torridge District Council offices and is also available on line at www. torridge.gov.uk/ winkleighbiomass or at http://www.peninsulapower.co.uk">www.peninsulapower.co.uk The council is hoping the planning application will finally be dealt with before Christmas. Peninsula Power claims the ground-breaking project would create up to 100 jobs during construction of the power plant, with up to 44 permanent jobs at the station itself. It also predicts the creation or protection of hundreds of jobs in related industries and a long lasting contribution to the local and regional economy. The biomass project aims to produce electricity in a sustainable manner. This week, the Institution of Civil Engineers in its annual report claimed the South West was facing an energy crisis with the phasing out of its two nuclear power stations and urged rapid development of an energy strategy to cope with rising demand for electricity.
