RESIDENTS have hit out after Bolton councillors backed plans for a huge power plant on greenbelt land in Blackrod.

The council’s planning committee spent just a few minutes debating the application for a 3,000-square-metre “gasification plant” which would convert wood into electricity.

Labour’s Harper Green councillor Lawrence Williamson described the proposed plant at Markland Farm, in Grimefold Lane, as “an interesting thing”.

The Conservative’s Astley Bridge councillor John Walsh said that in terms of renewable energy, it was “an option that ought to be tested”.

Liberal Democrat councillor Barbara Ronson said she would back the plans if the site was carefully monitored.

But the Blackrod and Horwich Environmental Action Group accused the committee of taking issues of loss of greenbelt and their fears of pollution too lightly.

Speaking afterwards, group chairman Eileen Jackson said: “It’s disappointing they spent so little time discussing it. They seem to view it as an interesting experiment yet we will have to live with it.”

The application by local businessman Paul Downes involves demolishing five buildings on the site and replacing them with two nine-metre-high, 77-metre-long industrial units.

One would house a “biomass generator” to turn energy created from burning wood into electricity. The other would be used to store the wood.

A 12-metre cooling tower would also be built.

The plant would provide electricity via the National Grid, hot water and heating specifically for houses near Grimeford Lane and nearby Douglas Valley golf course and Denton Farm.

The final decision has been delegated to a government planning director because the site is on greenbelt land.