BANBURY MP Tony Baldry is bidding to put the brakes on a shock decision to allow an Incinerator to be built at Ardley, near Bicester.

He will write to Eric Pickles, the Government’s Communities and Local Government Secretary, to urge him to call in the scheme.

Oxfordshire County Council’s planning and regulation committee approved the plan for Ardley Fields on Monday, a year after a similar bid was defeated.

Waste firm Viridor appealed against refusal of its first plan. A planning inquiry into this scheme is due to report next January.

Viridor said work on the plant could start in April next year.

Mr Baldry said the Incinerator was contrary to Cherwell District Council’s local plan, which sets out what development is allowed.

He said: “I will write Mr Pickles to ask him to consider calling in the decision, not least because this has been part of a public inquiry where people made detailed submissions and the appeal included the district council. That process has been overtaken by events.”

Campaigners say they are considering their position. Jon O’Neill, chairman of Ardley Against the Incinerator, said: “We need to know what happens next and how we go forward.”

Labour county councillor John Tanner will next week call for members to back a motion opposing the “blot on the Oxfordshire countryside”.