MORE than 100 people attended a public meeting last week to show the strength of feeling against a proposal for a waste transfer station in Brompton-on-Swale.

Yorwaste has applied to create a waste transfer station on the old landfill site on the edge of the village.

The company has also indicated that it will appeal against Richmondshire District Council's decision to reject an earlier application for a similar operation at an empty industrial unit off Bridge Road, also in Brompton-on-Swale.

Residents are equally opposed to both plans and say their lives will become a misery if a waste transfer station is allowed to be built so close to their homes.

Their main worries are smell, pollution of the air and water and the risk of vermin.

Businesses with premises close to the proposed site said their trade could be damaged by a waste transfer station.

The parish council said the village was not the right place for Yorwaste's proposals.

But the firm said it needed a temporary base to replace the waste transfer station which will be lost when the current Scorton landfill site closes. Yorwaste bosses say there are no realistic alternatives.

At the public meeting last week, villagers voted unanimously to contact Richmondshire District Council and ask that they demand a planning inquiry, before a Government planning inspector, into Yorwaste's appeal against the refusal of its plan for the industrial units at Bridge Road site.

Residents said they had collected more than 100 letters of objection. However, to ensure their case is presented clearly and concisely, either to the district council or a planning inquiry, a group of people will be selected to represent the views of all the residents, the local business community and the parish council.

At the public meeting it was agreed that residents should argue against the waste transfer station on the grounds of smell, possible contamination of the air and local watercourses, the risk of vermin infesting the site and a risk of a sharp increase in the amount of litter.

The parish council's arguments will include claims that a waste transfer station is incompatible with nearby homes and businesses, the project could damage existing firms and make it harder to attract new jobs to the area.