TODAY is D-Day for a controversial Incinerator plan for Bicester.

The £650m proposal for Ardley Fields, near Bicester, will be debated by Oxfordshire County Council’s planning and regulation committee.

It comes 12 months after a similar application by waste firm Viridor was rejected by councillors. The design is now subject to a public inquiry, set to report in January.

Like that application, planning officers are recommending approval of the revised scheme.

The 300,000-tonne capacity Incinerator would burn waste which cannot be recycled.

The report says it is needed as landfill taxes are set to increase steeply.

But committee member and Ploughley county councillor Catherine Fulljames is fuming, after being told she cannot vote as she lives too near the site.

She said: “I think it’s totally unreasonable, because I represent the principal villages objecting.”

She will still speak and will urge councillors to not let the county be the “dustbin” for nearby counties, which would also send waste to the plant.

She said: “I will tell members of the committee every time their dustbin is emptied, their rubbish will be transported by road to Ardley for the next 35 years.

“This is an application for a temporary building for 35 years.

“The children of the village will be middle-aged by then and some of us won’t be here at all.

“The bottom line is this is still an industrial building in the countryside.”

Mrs Fulljames said Ardley Fields, which is also a landfill site, will continue to accept up to 200,000 tonnes of waste a year, making a total of 500,000 tonnes arriving every year.

“There will be a maximum of 2,000 tonnes of waste brought to Ardley each day until landfill ends. That will create 202 extra traffic movements a day over and above what they already have.

“The county council has said there is no problem with traffic movement, but I don’t think you would get the same answer if you asked the people of Ardley.”

Ardley Against the Incinerator campaign group chairman Jon O’Neill said: “We need people to turn up and make their views known to councillors.

“On Monday we could end up with an approved incinerator planning application, despite the fact that a planning inspector has not ruled on the first application.”

Viridor says it has developed a safe and cost-effective solution to deal with Oxfordshire’s residual non-recyclable waste.

The firm’s project manager Robert Ryan said: “We’re pleased to see that planning officers clearly recognise the need for our proposed facility.

“Our proposals have been in line with national and local waste management and planning policies from the outset.

“Our proposed development is on an existing waste management site with good access to the road network and both the Highways Agency and county Highways Authority have acknowledged that there will not be a significant impact on local traffic levels.

“Our proposed energy-from-waste facility has been designed to stop Oxfordshire’s reliance on landfill as a waste disposal method, with the benefits of recovering value from residual waste in the form of electricity and avoiding hefty landfill tax costs.”

l Waste Recycling Group has applied to build a similar incinerator at Calvert, nine miles east of Bicester.