Proposals to build a waste treatment plant in the city as part of a £300 million 25-year contract to deal with household rubbish from Bradford and Calderdale are to go on show later this month.

A consortium now known as Pennine Resource Recovery (PRR) is preparing a planning application for a resource recovery facility and energy recovery plant at the Bradford Council-owned Bowling Back Lane site.

The company was selected as the preferred bidder by the authorities in December and expects to submit its plans to the Council in the spring. First a number of public information days are taking place to give local residents the chance to find out more about the scheme.

Work is expected to begin next year with the plant up and running by 2016. It will deal with up to 193,000 tonnes of waste a year and divert at least 90 per cent away from landfill and help to boost recycling rates.

Mark Tribe, PRR project director, said: “We want to ensure that our neighbours and wider residents are fully informed about what we are proposing, understand the economic and environmental benefits that the resource recovery facility will bring to Bradford and Calderdale, and recognise why we need to manage our waste in a more sustainable way.

“When the facility is fully operational it will extract and recycle tonnes of valuable recyclable materials that would otherwise be sent to landfill. We anticipate this material will be re-processed locally generating further investment in the Bradford and Calderdale area.

“This is the start of the pre-application consultation process with more events planned for later in the year.”

All general waste will be dealt with indoors in the mechanical recycling plant which will operate 14 hours a day five days a week. State-of-the-art separators and infra-red devices will extract recyclable materials. The remaining waste will become the fuel to power the energy recovery plant which will operate 24 hours a day seven days a week. It will generate steam to drive a turbine to generate enough electricity to power about 20,000 homes – or a town the size of Bingley.

About 300 jobs will be created during the three-year construction period and a further 80 employees will operate the plant. At the end of 25 years the two authorities will own the plant, with Bradford owning the site throughout.

The site is home to a household waste recycling centre, which will be relocated. PRR will also take over the running of the Council’s waste transfer station at Royd Ings Avenue, Keighley.

The information events will be held at: Bradford Fire Station, Leeds Road, on Wednesday, February 29, from 3pm and 8.30pm; Lower Fields Primary School, Fenby Avenue, on Wednesday, March 7, from 5.30pm to 8.30pm; and the Midland Hotel, on Saturday, March 10, from 10am to 4pm.

Further details are available at pennineresources. com or on 0800 1601050.