A parish council has pledged to oppose any future plans for a thermal waste treatment plant to be built near a Norfolk village.

A site in Harling Road, Snetterton, has been identified in a blueprint as a potential location for a future waste plant.

The site, currently home to Snetterton Recycling Centre and the Lafarge Ready-Mix plant, is on a list of places being earmarked for future waste plants.

Norfolk Environmental Waste Services (NEWS), part of the Norfolk County Council-owned Norse Group of companies, has asked County Hall to allocate a 3.5-hectare site in Harling Road, Snetterton, for waste purposes.

Among the proposed uses for the site are composting, anaerobic digestion, processing of recyclable energy from waste and thermal treatment.

The latter two terms can refer to incineration, but Peter Hawes, managing director of Norse Commercial Services, has said his company has no plan to have such a burner on the site.

He said the list of possible uses was a case of the company keeping its options open, but that the most likely scenario was that industrial units will be built on the site.

However, the chairman of Quidenham Parish Council has said the council has long been objecting to the site's inclusion in the county council's Norfolk Minerals and Waste Development Framework - and will continue to do so.

Parish council chairman Peter Lotarius said: 'The main concern has been the site's proximity to the village of Eccles, which is within 400 metres.

'The site specific document clearly states that thermal treatment would produce ammonia and nitrogen emmisions.

'It cannot therefore be right to build such a facility next to a village. I will never believe that it is safe to do so.

'We have stated this on three previous occasions and have been ignored. When will Norfolk County Council listen to the community?'

He said the village has very strict planning guidelines which are supposed to allow only very minor development, to protect the rural nature of the community.

He stressed the parish council would oppose any attempt to base thermal treatment on the site.

The parish council will discuss the site when it meets at the Garnier Hall in Eccles at 7pm on Tuesday, March 13.

At a meeting of the county council's cabinet this week, councillors agreed to put out the site specific allocations development plan, listing just under 60 potential waste and mineral site locations around the county, for further consultation.

Following further consultation, the documents will be sent to the secretary of state and an examination in public will take place in the autumn.

All allocated sites will still need to secure planning permission before they would be able to operate.

dan.grimmer@archant.co.uk