CAMPAIGNERS fighting to stop a waste Incinerator being built near their village have launched a legal bid to overturn the Secretary of State’s decision to allow the plant to be built.

Ardley Against the Incinerator has applied for the High Court to overturn the decision by Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Local Government and Communities, saying his decision-making process was flawed.

Mr Pickles now has 21 days to respond.

Ardley campaign group chairman Jon O’Neill said: “We have always believed, with good reason and evidence, that the granting of planning permission to develop a 300,000-tonne incinerator on the Ardley Fields Farm site is wrong.

“After a thorough review by, and detailed guidance from, legal counsel we believe that there is a significant point of law on which the Statutory Appeal is based.”

Owen Morton, spokesman for Oxfordshire County Council, which granted waste management firm Viridor permission to build the facility at a site near Bicester following a long series of legal and planning wrangles, said: “We are aware that a legal challenge has been made to the Secretary of State’s recent appeal decision.

“This will be a matter for the High Court to determine.”

Campaigners expect the statutory appeal will be heard in the High Court in the autumn.

No-one was available at the Department of Local Government and Communities for comment as the Oxford Mail went to press.