AN APPLICATION to build a £15m-plus facility in Pembroke Dock, which would generate electricity from heated oily sludge is expected to be turned down by county planners on Tuesday, December 15.

The application by Cardiff-based Baracud Energy Ltd to build a pyrolysis unit on land at Waterloo Industrial site owned by Ledwood Mechanical Engineering Ltd is recommended for refusal at Tuesday’s meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council’s Planning and Rights of Way Committee.

The application was previously recommended for refusal at the January committee meeting, but was withdrawn by the applicants at the eleventh hour.

The facility, with an annual running cost of just under £1m a year, would thermally treat, at up to 900 degrees centigrade, an oily sludge and filter cake mix generated as a by-product of the energy industry to produce ‘Syngas’, using it to generate up to six megawatts of electricity.

A report for councillors stated the facility would process up to 17,500 tonnes of material a year, as part of a 24 hour-a-day operation, running seven days a week.

Some 60 letters of objection to the application have been received, along with concerns raised by Pembroke Dock Town Council.

The application has been recommended for refusal on the grounds the site lies within a flood zone, the scale and character is not in keeping with the local character of the site, and would have an adverse impact on the Milford Haven Waterway historic landscape.