A COMPANY wanting to dump up to 200,000 tonnes of special waste near Durham is demanding an urgent decision from councillors on the plans.

Biffa Waste Service's application to deposit waste at Houghton Quarry, in Houghton-le-Spring, is to be discussed by Sunderland City Council's planning and highways committee on January 15.

A group opposed to the licence application, Residents Against Toxic Site (Rats), believes the quarry will become a dumping ground for toxic waste, and fears the pollution of Wearside's underground water supplies, and airborne contamination of the communities around Houghton.

However, the firm has come out fighting, issuing a statement to put all the facts about the proposals before interested parties. Biffa's John Ablitt said the company, which had been dumping household, commercial and industrial waste at the Houghton site for three years, was providing a vital service to businesses by disposing of their waste in a controlled way.

He said: "All we are asking is to improve our service to local industry by seeking permission to dispose of a wider range of waste.

"We have shown that the site is engineered in such a way as to dispose of this waste safely, and we believe that it is time a decision was made."

He said the site had already received more than 70,000 tonnes of material, and the application to modify the waste licence would allow the dumping of oily rags and printer cartridges.

Mr Ablitt's statement continued: "It is a modern, robust design which has been demonstrated to protect groundwater quality - a job it is carrying out admirably.

"Biffa has demonstrated, through a risk assessment, that the acceptance of limited quantities of special waste at Houghton will not cause any adverse impact on groundwater quality."

Colin Wakefield, of Rats, said Sunderland council has submitted a study, carried out by Durham-based Oxford Geotechnica, which backs up some of the protest group's claims.

He said: "The council has its own report as well, carried out by the British Geological Survey (BGS), which points to cracks appearing on nearby Houghton Cut.

"Some people were dismissive when we first raised this, but here we have experts from the BGS saying it is significant and a phenomenon that could affect the whole coalfield."