THERE WAS a question mark last night over a decision by Belfast City Council to vote by a narrow margin against building a £300 million waste incinerator on property it owns close to Belfast Lough in Northern Ireland.
On Tuesday night councillors voted by 17 votes to 16 against the proposal to establish the incinerator on the north foreshore of the lough.
Alliance councillor Tom Ekin had proposed that an incinerator and a mechanical biological treatment works, which prepares waste for processing, should be developed at the site.
Arc 21, a group of councils on the eastern seaboard of Northern Ireland, wanted the council to build the incinerator by 2016. Alliance supported the facility on the basis that not only would it address the problem of waste but that the incinerator would provide heating energy to serve up to 40,000 homes.
The councillors however, on an amendment from Sinn Féin, voted against the incinerator but in favour of the mechanical biological treatment works.
There was a further development yesterday evening when the council said there was now an “irregularity” over one of the votes cast.
This could have left the vote at 16/16 with the casting vote on the issue going to the Belfast lord mayor Naomi Long. As she is an Alliance councillor it seems certain she would have supported the Alliance proposal.
The council is now seeking legal advice on what it should do next and whether a vote on the incinerator should be taken again.
The council’s strategic policy and resources committee is meeting tomorrow to discuss the matter.
The council recently carried out a £100,000 public consultation over the incinerator with 90 per cent of the 8,000 respondents expressing support for the facility. In north Belfast where the incinerator is proposed to be built 76 per cent said they favoured the proposal, according to the council.
