THE Portuguese company which has submitted plans for a Compact Power energy-from-waste facility on Wrexham Industrial Estate is to hold a public consultation exercise.
Early in the new year HLC bosses say they will be writing to more than 7,000 households.
And they also plan to hold seven exhibitions in central Wrexham, the industrial estate and in the communities closest to the proposed site.
The company originally submitted an application for an incinerator in September 2001 but the new planning application is based on a process that 'cooks' not burns waste according to company spokesman, Alex Doyle.
He said: 'The new application does not include an incinerator.
'Electricity would be produced through processes of pyrolysis and gasification.
'The primary focus of the resource recovery centre is to maximise recycling. Only material that cannot be re-used, composted or recycled will be used to make electricity.'
The plans have been slammed by Forward Wales candidate Janet Williams.
Ms Williams, who will be contesting the Wrexham constituency in the coming General Election, said: 'It will take time for us to properly consider this development proposal, but initial observations suggest it is the original plan recycled and revisited and it would be located within 400m of a primary school.
'We know problems can and do occur with waste processing and I question the wisdom of siting it so close to a school.'
And she has challenged HLC over its claims that pyrolysis is not incineration.
She said: 'It claims the new pyrolysis plant is not an incinerator. But this statement conflicts with the Government's own definition of incineration, which states that: 'Incineration plant means any stationary or mobile technical unit and equipment dedicated to the thermal treatment of waste with or without the recovery of the combustion heat generated.'
But the leader of Wrexham County Borough Council, Cllr Neil Rogers, has attacked comments made by a Forward Wales spokesman over the timing of the application.
Last week, a party spokesman said the application had been submitted just prior to Christmas, as previously, while everyone's mind was on the festivities.
However, Cllr Rogers said: 'We have more than doubled the public consultation period from 21 to 47 days to take the Christmas period into account, while the whole consultation period is 16 weeks.
'The original application was submitted on September 11, 2001 which was hardly just before Christmas as Forward Wales suggest.
'All planning applications that come before the authority are dealt with without prejudice, as will be the case with HLC's application.'
In last week's Wrexham Mail, we quoted a Forward Wales spokesman as saying there was a 16-week consultation period for the new incinerator scheme put forward by HLC. In fact the party criticised the 47-day public consultation period and not the 16-week full consultation process.
