A proposed Bill could see planning permissions for 40 incinerators – including the one planned for Portland Port – revoked, if it becomes law.
The news has been welcomed by the Stop Portland Incinerator Campaign and hailed as a ‘major boost’ to those who oppose the project.
Etienne Stott of Stop Portland Incinerator Campaign (SPIC) said: “There is still a way to go with this Bill, but it sends a clear signal to investors in these projects that they are unacceptable, particularly on this beautiful coastline and positioned so that the homes of people behind and above the level of the top of the chimney will have the polluting plume pouring directly onto them.”
The £180 million development spearheaded by Powerfuel Portland has been marred in controversy for years – the latest of which is a request to burn potentially hazardous material at the site. This is a change to the environmental permit it was awarded at the beginning of the year and is currently out for public consultation.
It comes off the back of developers being given the green light following a legal dispute between the government and campaigners over the decision to overturn Dorset Council’s initial rejection of planning permission last year.
The Bill, which was has been put forward by South West Wiltshire MP, Dr. Andrew Murrison, and is supported by South Dorset MP Lloyd Hatton, calls for planning consent for all new incinerators to be revoked. The motion was passed unanimously for a second reading on January 16, 2026.
Whilst addressing the House, Dr Murrison said that existing waste incinerators are struggling to find enough waste to burn, and that the government’s own figures said the UK has enough capacity already to last until 2034, without building another 40 planned incinerators.
He said: “For too long, too many of our constituents have lived in the shadow of waste burners that pollute the air that we breathe.
He continued “…[the incinerator industry] has greenwashed its operations as ‘energy from waste’. The generation of a few tepid calories and a feeble stream of electrons has convinced Whitehall that waste burners are part of a transition to a green future and Net Zero. They are not.”
The MP said that incinerators produce more CO2 than coal-fired power stations plus a cocktail of other pollution. He said that ‘deliver or pay’ contracts which charge councils for not creating and delivering enough waste for burning also discourages recycling.
He added:“We are allergic to putting waste in the ground, but happy to consign it to the landfill in the sky—out of sight, out of mind and straight into the lungs of those living downwind…”
“Not only does the incineration of plastic produce 175 times as much CO2 as landfill, but the emissions per unit of energy produced from burning mixed waste is the same as coal and nearly double that of gas. It is the dirtiest way we generate electricity in this country by far. We have to change course.”