PROTESTERS in Bromham have dealt the village's largest employer a slap in the face by rejecting Mark Wilkinson's plans to build a £9 million renewable energy waste plant and houses in the area.

At the annual parish meeting at the village social centre on Tuesday, 171 villagers voted for a resolution to ask Mr Wilkinson to irrevocably withdraw his proposals. There were seven abstentions and just four voted in favour of the plan.

Mr Wilkinson wrote to every villager in February, outlining his ideas for the innovative scheme, designed to reduce the nuisance caused to residents by the traffic of his 200-plus strong workforce.

Under the proposals, he would move his factory, currently sited on three sites in the village, to a new site at a disused quarry at Berrymore Wood. The waste recycling plant, it is claimed, would provide enough energy to run the new factory and power the whole village.

The planned houses would be needed to fund the cost of building the plant and, although Mr Wilkinson said the scale of the housing has not been decided, it is thought they could number between 80 and 120.

Protesters claimed 200 houses were mentioned in the minutes of a parish council meeting and they were concerned by the effect of fall-out from the waste recycling plant on the market gardening industry in the village.

Accountant Michael Armstrong, who has lived at Westbrook for more than 20 years, said: "The letter refers to the plant producing less pollution than a bus from Bristol to Bath. When this was put to Compact Power, the company who would build and run the plant, they literally laughed.

"From Compact Power's own information, some of the emissions are very toxic; heavy metals and dioxins, and dioxins are one of the most poisonous substances known."

Market gardener Phil Collins said the prevailing wind would blow the emissions from the plant across the village. He said: "Everybody here is in favour of limited extra housing in the village but we don't want the incinerator. Yes, on an industrial site but not right in the middle of the village."

Mr Wilkinson, however, is determined to carry on consulting people in the village. He said: "I can understand what they're worried about. They don't want their homes to reduce in value, but in the coming years it will be hard to find a community without a waste recycling plant."

Richard Hogg of Compact Power denied that anyone from his organisation had scoffed at the sentiments contained in Mr Wilkinson's letter.

Award-winning investigative journalist Roger Cook has backed Mr Wilkinson's idea. He said: "The protesters appear totally misinformed. All the recycling plant will produce is inert ash and water."