Councillors have agreed to push forward with plans for a controversial incinerator facility in the south of Aberdeen after a special meeting yesterday.
The £150million green energy from waste plant in Tullos will take waste from Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray, to be burned and transformed into energy.
It doesn’t happen often, but Granite City councillors were united in approving the signing of an inter-authority agreement, meaning that a two-year procurement process can begin.
Moray and Aberdeenshire are expected to sign their agreements later this week.
The facility, which will have a 260ft chimney, aims to reduce the carbon footprint of the local authority, in advance of tough Scottish Government regulations due to be imposed by 2021.
Work is expected to begin on the project in 2019. But the plan has been met with fury in communities south of the Dee with four community councils launching formal objections citing health fears and an increase in traffic among other issues.
Yesterday a special meeting of the full city council was convened.
In a rare show of unity, the Labour-led administration and opposition SNP group came to an agreed motion with a number of extra conditions.
Chief executive Angela Scott will now write to the chief executives of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, NHS Grampian and Health Protection Scotland, seeking their “professional” opinion on the health and environmental concerns raised.
A procurement exercise on a cheap heat network for Torry will also be undertaken.
Council leader Jenny Laing said: “I think it’s important that we realise we are agreed to take this development forward to the second stage.
“I am pleased we were able to come together with the SNP group.”
SNP group leader Stephen Flynn responded: “The most important thing for me was to get agreement in the chamber on a heat network for Torry.
“I tried to get the best out of a bad deal. There are still unanswered questions, but hopefully, our queries to Health Protection Scotland may answer some of them.”
David Fryer, secretary of Torry Community Council, confirmed the group would continue to resist the scheme.
He said: “This is a classic compromise – the best thing they could have done would have been to defer the decision, so they could go back and have a long hard think.
“The anguish in the community isn’t about cheap heat. It’s about industrial fumes so close to a school and housing.”
