Council officers vowing to keep a close eye on a controversial £30 million plastics recycling plant in the Harborough district after the owners' sudden relaunch

County council officers are vowing to keep a close eye on a controversial £30 million plastics recycling plant being re-opened in Harborough district.

They have made the pledge after owners Beauparc suddenly revealed they were re-launching the highly-contentious scheme at Cotesbach, near Lutterworth, later this month.

The announcement came out of the blue – and sparked fury among stunned villagers in both Cotesbach and the nearby historic conservation village Shawell.

They reacted angrily weeks after winning a bitter year-long battle to stop Beauparc opening a massive new waste-processing complex at the same site on bottlenecked Gibbet Lane.

The county council has now told the Harborough Mail that the Dublin-based waste management giant is in fact re-opening a mothballed facility that operated for six years until being shut down in 2016.

“A waste facility off Gibbet Lane, near Shawell, was granted planning permission in 2008 and was operated as a Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) facility between 2010 and 2016," said a county council spokeswoman.

“Earlier this year, a planning application was submitted to Leicestershire County Council to change the use of the waste facility to a Material Recovery Facility (MRF), and increase annual throughput of waste from 50,000 tonnes to 150,000 tonnes.

“The application was reported to the county council’s Development Control and Regulatory Board (DCRB) in October and planning permission was refused.

“The operator has since made the county council aware that they intend to recommence operations at the site in accordance with the existing planning permission and environmental permit.”

Council planning officers said they fully understood that hundreds of villagers have been left very worried by the high-profile operator’s latest move.

And they vowed to closely monitor operations at the plant to make sure that Beauparc did not break existing planning conditions.

“We take our responsibility as the Waste Planning Authority very seriously and understand the concerns that residents may have,” said the council spokeswoman.

“When the site recommences operations, we will monitor operations at the site to ensure they take place in accordance with the planning permission.”

Cllr Jonathan Bateman, who represents Cotesbach and Shawell on Harborough District Council, told the Mail: “I would say that while the company are within their rights to re-open the facility in line with previously-approved planning and environmental permissions it was not helpful to have presented this re-opening in such a way as to cause unnecessary concerns and worries to the local residents.

“Perhaps the company will consider the manner in which they launch such plans for the future.”

Beauparc has been repeatedly asked for a comment on the issue by the Mail but has not yet offered one.

They are acting after county councillors unanimously turned down the firm’s proposed huge waste processing blueprint last month after hundreds of people fought to kill it off.

Furious villagers were backed by the council’s planning officer dealing with the application, Sophie Hughes, who recommended that the Gibbet Lane project be refused.

Natasha Raven, 42, who helped to spearhead the powerful protest, told the Mail at the time: “We are absolutely thrilled and elated.

“This horrifying waste plant would have buried our whole beautiful part of Leicestershire under an avalanche of lorries.

“The smell and the terrible cost to our local environment would have been brutal.

“Thank goodness the county council’s planning committee listened closely to what we had to say – and come down unanimously on our side.”