RESIDENTS in Stratton are angry about plans to build two 10 metre high chimneys at the Marshgate Waste Transfer Station.

A planning application was submitted to Swindon Borough Council last month requesting permission to build the chimneys at the site.

But residents, already irked by years of environmental neglect, have hit back, damning the plans as “reckless”.

Coun Barrie Jennings, who sits on Stratton St Margaret Parish Council’s planning and highways committee, alerted locals to the plans.

He said: “The people who live in this area have been troubled with this for years and they are now being expected to put up with the burning of woodchip in their back gardens.”

The proposal is for the installation of two biomass boilers, intended to burn wood, to be placed along the northern boundary of Marshgate Waste Transfer Station. For this to go ahead, two 10 metre high chimneys would also have to be erected.

Each 999kw boiler has a flue extending to a height of 10 metres and will be housed in one of the existing buildings.

Coun Jennings said: “The way I’m looking at it is: no chimneys, no burning. The people who live here are all absolutely against it.”

Ted Browning, 79, who lives just a stone’s throw from the site, was shocked when he read the planning forms.

He said: “The application should be stopped, it shouldn’t even have gone ahead in the first place. There will be smoke billowing out at all hours and you just don’t want that in a residential area.

“There have been problems with that site for years and we have had to put up with the fires and environmental destruction.”

But LPC Trull Ltd, the agents who submitted the form, have sought to play down any impact on the local area.

A spokesman said: “The new chimneys will not change the overall appearance of the area. The public impact is minimal.”