A DECISION whether or not to support waste proposals which could see incinerators built in Mid Cheshire will be made tomorrow.

Vale Royal Borough Council's executive group will meet to consider whether to endorse Cheshire County Council's Draft Replacement Waste Plan for waste management in Cheshire.

Strict Government targets on reducing waste going to landfill by 2020 requires Cheshire County Council to implement a strategy in partnership with the waste collection authorities, including Vale Royal.

Vale Royal is the only borough council in Cheshire yet to sign up to the strategy, which anticipates post-recycling waste levels above Government targets and requiring thermal treatment plants - or incinerators - to deal with it. It would instigate efforts to secure around £41m of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding for the scheme.

The plant is likely to be on former Brunner Mond land in Lostock Gralam, though a site on Brooks Lane Industrial Estate in Middlewich is also earmarked as suitable.

Councillor Malcolm Gas-kill, Vale Royal's lead councillor for waste, disagrees strongly with the need for such a plant, saying it is too early to make a decision.

Cllr Gaskill said: 'If you were getting married tomorrow morning you would not go and buy a five-bedroom house on the basis that you would have four kids. Similarly we don't know what the level of recycling will be in Cheshire. We are looking at 2020 when all this needs to be in place - that's 15 years away.

'When we agreed to the scheme in 2002, 8% or 9% of waste was being recycled; now we are doing 40% - the simplest person can see we are in a whole new ball game.'

Brian Cartwright, chairman of CHAIN, Cheshire Anti-Incinerator Network, agreed. He said: 'We believe if you get a higher recycling rate, the need for an incinerator grows less and less. Vale Royal has moved from a single figure to 40% in eight or nine months.

'There's no reason whatsoever why we can't get that recycling rate up to 60% and possibly higher - at that rate you don't have a reason for an incinerator.'

However, not everyone is pleased with the delay on signing up to the scheme and up to £40m subsidies.

Labour Cllr Brian Lloyd has dubbed Vale Royal a 'rogue council' saying: 'I'm afraid if the money's lost then the only way forward is the cheapest option - an incinerator,' he warned.