Plans for a new waste tip have been received with a mixture of caution and anger by residents.

Humberside consortium Wastewise has applied for planning permission to develop a large landfill site at Buck Park Quarry, next to Whalley Lane, Denholme. The company says the tip will benefit the village and that it will invest £2.5 million in community projects.

The disused quarry on the edge of the village has two million cubic metres of space which the company wants to develop into a tip. The £20 million project is likely to arouse protests from villagers in both Denholme and Cullingworth, who already have to contend with a tip at Manywells, between the villages.

Diane Marshall, a member of the Manywells pressure group, believes the new development will make things 'ten times worse'. "From past experience we know that whatever happens the plans will go through, so we are going to insist they take as many precautions as possible," she says. "We will fight for the wagons not to come through the village.

"Since the tip was opened at Manywells we have had a problem with litter all through the valley, and for the last three summers we have been infested with flies. We are still getting a smell in Cullingworth which is drifting across from the tip. Even visiting waste management personnel from the council noticed it."

Bradford council's existing tips will be full within two years. If the development gets the go-ahead it could meet the entire district's dumping needs for ten years.

Town Mayor Russell Driver says all the pros and cons of the scheme will have to be weighed up before any decisions are made.

He says: "We need to wait and see what the application is like before any decision is made. We realise there is a long way to go until we are fully aware of all the issues.

"We have told Wastewise what we need to see from them and we will be taking the issue further with them in the near future. I would like to think that anything we do will be in the best interests of the people of Denholme."

Denholme town councillors have asked the company to provide a public display of the plans. A meeting to discuss the development will be arranged soon.

When the firm announced the plans in August last year, they met with opposition from councillors. They were worried about the problem of increased heavy traffic through the town. Denholme already has to contend with a substantial number of heavy lorries passing through daily on the busy A629 Halifax to Keighley road.

Wastewise has spent the last six months carrying out a detailed environmental study of the quarry before preparing its plans.

Development Director Nick Davies says: "If our proposals are approved this site will be a benefit to the community, not only by resolving a waste disposal crisis but also by actually by putting investment directly in the community. Modern landfill sites are designed to exacting engineering and environmental standard and have systems built in to ensure they have a minimum impact on surrounding communities."

As well as improving the junction at Top Lane and the A629, Wastewise says it will build a new access road to the quarry, and landscape the area to minimise its presence.

Under provisions in the landfill tax legislation the company is also pledging to invest £2.5million over ten years into community and environmental projects in the local area.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.