A FARMER has won permission to produce power from manure and silage after a planning inspector overturned a council’s previous refusal.

Durham County Council’s planning committee had rejected the application to build an Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant at High Hedleyhope Farm in County Durham.

The plan had been recommended for approval by the council’s planning officers, but councillors refused it at their meeting in November.

The applicants appealed and now the Planning Inspectorate has found in their favour ordering the council to pay the full costs of the appeal.

The digestion plant will feature a waste reception building, two digester tanks and two pasteurisation tanks together with a combined heat and power plant on 1ha of the 303ha farm between Tow Law and Esh Winning and will breakdown waste such as manure and grass silage to release a gas which in turn will drive a generator.

As well as using their own waste, the farm will also import waste materials from food manufacturers and abattoirs, with the expected power output of 500klw being used to heat animal sheds.

Surplus power would be sold back to the National Grid.

The were opposed by Hedley Hope, Cornsay and Tow Law Parish and Town Councils and Durham Wildlife Trust who said the plant would release an unpleasant odour, increase noise and be a blot on the landscape.

The county council also received 21 objections from residents who feared a potential pollution risk posed by the plant.

The council’s planning committee overruled their officers’ recommendation and rejected the application claiming the proposed plant goes against the authority’s waste plan due to its size and location.

But the Planning Inspectorate said the waste plan did not apply to the farm’s scheme and Government guidelines said sustainable renewable energy schemes should be favoured.

Steve Barker, of Prism Planning, who represented the farm owners said: “To win the appeal is a great outcome for a proposal which in our view – and the planning inspector – should have been approved in the first instance.

“To be awarded full costs reinforces the strength this application had in terms of its benefits and appropriateness in terms of its siting, environmental and visual impact and sustainability.”

The Planning Inspector acknowledged the scheme may produce odours but said they would not be “considered unduly noxious in a rural, agricultural environment”.

He said the sustainable nature of using the farm waste would outweigh the downsides.