WASTE wood from Dorset which could be used to power local homes is being shipped to Sweden because of “intolerable delays” in the planning system.

Eco Sustainable Solutions Ltd unveiled plans in 2007 to build a £7 million biomass plant on its existing composting and wood recycling site at Parley near Christchurch.

The 25,000 tonne capacity facility would be capable of generating 2.7MW of electricity a year from burning wood. The electricity would be sent to the National Grid at nearby Redhill and be enough to power 5,000 local homes.

But more than two years after the proposal was first announced, and despite detailed work costing more than £100,000 to date, planning permission has still to be approved.

Now Eco has been forced to send 1,600 tonnes of waste wood - collected from household recycling centres across Dorset – to Southampton docks where it will be shipped to Sweden for use in paper mills.

Transporting the wood to the docks involves approximately 80 lorry movements. But sending the wood to Sweden works out at about half the cost of disposing the waste in UK landfill sites.

Trelawney Dampney, Eco’s Managing Director, said: “This is complete madness but I’m afraid will be only too familiar to many in our industry who have to deal with the vagaries of the planning system.

“We are ready, willing and able to establish an environmentally friendly biomass power plant fuelled by waste wood from Dorset and proving power to local homes.

“But our detailed plans are still awaiting approval and we’re left in the crazy position of shipping wood to Sweden with all the negative implications that has for the environment.

“The planning system needs urgently sorting out because it is causing intolerable delays to us and many others in our industry. It is also hugely expensive, costing us well over £100,000 to date with that figure rising by the same amount every three weeks until we get our power plant up and running.”

Biomass plants were highlighted in the Stern Report on Global Warming, published in 2006, as a way of tackling climate change. They burn wood products but in a way that is carbon neutral and, therefore, does not contribute to global warming.

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