LOCAL Conservatives have been accused of glossing over their involvement in a controversial agreement to build a waste incinerator in Hatfield.

Welwyn Hatfield Labour Parliamentary candidate Mike Hobday branded the Tories "deceitful", claiming that their opposition to converting the New Barnfield former school site in Travellers Lane into a combined heat and power plant was a pretence.

Mr Hobday insisted that Hertfordshire County Councillor Stuart Pile and Welwyn Hatfield MP Grant Shapps had publicised their disapproval on the £220 million development on the politician's own website, but Councillor Pile has since been involved in pushing the project forward.

He said that the Hatfield South Conservative councillor did not contest the project to build the 270,000 tonne plant in New Barnfield and move the existing education services on the site elsewhere when it was approved by the county council cabinet in October.

Mr Hobday said: "The Conservatives are walking around saying they are concerned and opposed to it, but the evidence seems to imply the opposite.

"It looks in evidence that despite the words and actions of local Conservatives, they're not supporting the concerns of Hatfield residents and it seems councillors are quite happy to have a waste incinerator, pollution and traffic in South Hatfield.

“Local Conservatives have been desperate to distance themselves from the controversial incinerator project.

"It is now clear that the Conservative Party, including Hatfield county councillor Stuart Pile, have been making active preparations for the incinerator to be built at Hatfield.

“Their pretence that they were not backing the incinerator has now been exposed as deceit.

“It’s time for local Conservatives to come clean – they simply aren’t concerned about what happens to Hatfield’s environment, how many lorries are put onto our streets or how much pollution is pumped into the atmosphere.

“The incinerator project is a bad one and the New Barnfield location is the wrong one.”

The plant will be responsible for converting household rubbish from across Hertfordshire into heat and electricity for 20,000 homes.

It will be capable of burning 270,000 tonnes of waste a year, generating electricity and providing heat, possibly for sale to a neighbouring business or office building.

The cabinet approved the move after the site was earmarked as a possible solution to the problem of what to do with the county's growing mountain of rubbish.

Councillor Pile did not respond to the Review's invitation to comment before we went to press.