CONTROVERSIAL plans to build an incinerator with four chimneys up to 100-foot high in the Hampshire countryside have sparked major opposition.

Developers Clean Power Properties Limited and Network Rail Infrastucture Limited have revealed details of the proposed new plant on a railway siding at Micheldever Station.

The multi-million-pound energy-from-waste burner will process household and also commercial and industrial waste. The scheme includes a recycling plant for food and green garden waste.

Under the proposals, up to 210,000 tons of waste per year would be taken to the six-acre site, enough to produce 7.6 megawatts of electricity.

Developers say most of the waste would arrive by road, although rail would be investigated as an option.

The plan is for the plant to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with deliveries limited to between 8am and 6pm Mondays to Fridays, and Saturday mornings.

Developers say benefits would include diverting more rubbish from landfill, generating renewable energy from waste and creating up to 30 full-time jobs.

However, Micheldever Parish Council has formally objected to the plans for the former rail freight yard, now a species-rich chalk grassland site.

Parish councillor Peter Bradley said: “We are quite horrified. It is not even a brownfield site, but a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC) which has been untouched for generations. There will be light pollution, traffic pollution and smells. It is industrial development in the countryside.”

County councillor Jackie Porter, who represents the Itchen Valley, said: “I am an advocate of alternative energy but it is too big. The main issue is the chimneys, which will dominate the landscape and affect the setting of listed buildings, including Micheldever railway station.”

She said the county council’s energy from waste incinerators, including one at nearby Chineham, near Basingstoke, has spare capacity and were importing household waste from outside Hampshire.

Tessa Robertson, vice-chairman of The Dever Society, said: “Our members will be very concerned, especially about the visual intrusion of the four 30-metre high chimneys. There is also the noise and other pollution. I reckon there will be a minimum 15,000 lorry movements a year, equal to 288 a week.”

If they win planning consent from Hampshire County Council, the developers aim to have the plant open by 2015 with an 18-month period of building work starting in 2013-14.