The New Year has brought Teesside’s Incineration industry back into focus, with two new schemes entering an already crowded market. This expansion is unfolding amid growing concern about cumulative air pollution, public health impacts, and the concentration of waste infrastructure in communities that already bear a heavy industrial burden.
A growth industry
In Grangetown, a company called CSG has just overturned a planning refusal for a hazardous waste incinerator at Wilton International. Over the other side of the River Tees, Billingham Energy Ltd has resuscitated a 12-year old planning permission to build an “Energy from Waste” (EfW) incinerator. I’m going to describe the current situation in both towns, followed by an outline of the future proposals.
Grangetown is on fire
Grangetown is fast becoming the UK’s incinerator capital. As can be seen from the map below, there are already two incinerators to the north east of the town. The proposed hazardous waste incinerator can be seen to the east, and the Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility (TVERF) is planned for the other side of town.
Wilton Inferno
There are two existing incinerators on the boundary of Grangetown. Wilton 10 is a biomass incinerator. It burns up to 300,000 tonnes of wood waste per year. Residents in nearby Teesville have complained of fine wood dust on their cars and garden furniture. These may be from this plant.
Wilton 11
Wilton 11 is an EfW incinerator operated as a joint venture by Sembcorp, the operator of the Wilton International site, and Suez. The incinerator burns the domestic waste for a population of 1.6 million people living in Merseyside, including Liverpool, and Halton. Halton is, essentially, Runcorn and Widnes. Wilton 11 burns up to 500,000 tonnes of waste per year, mainly from Merseyside and Halton. But recent data from WikiWaste shows that material is also imported from other places too:
Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility
TVERF is a proposed EfW incinerator which is intended to be built in the “Dorman Point” zone of the Teesworks project. TVERF is a joint project between the five local authorities in the Tees Valley, plus County Durham and Newcastle.
Viridor
Viridor has been named as preferred tender for this project, which would burn up to 450,000 tonnes of waste per year. This is despite the company’s poor environmental record. For example, 1000 licence breaches at its Croydon incinerator alone. Financial Close on the contract is scheduled to take place in mid-March 2026, despite vigorous opposition from local groups such as Stop Incineration North East (SINE).
Wilton Hazardous Waste Incinerator
In January 2025, a company called CSG was refused planning permission for a hazardous waste incinerator at the Wilton International site. The incinerator is planned to be built adjacent to the A1053, known locally as the “mad mile”. The company subsequently appealed the decision, made by the local authority, Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council. On 13 January 2026, the Planning Inspectorate decided to allow CSG’s appeal, so the incinerator is now likely to go ahead. An excerpt from the inspectorate’s letter can be seen below:
There’s No Limit
Residents had argued that there were already too many incinerators in the Grangetown area. The above map would appear to support the residents’ argument. However, the inspector stated that there is no convincing evidence to suggest that this is the case “either in a site availability context at Wilton International… or in the Borough in particular or more generally in Teesside / South Durham. There is no policy basis that established capacity limits for incinerators …at Wilton International.”
What’s occurring in Billingham?
In addition to its incinerator at Wilton, Suez also operates two EfW plants at Haverton Hill, near Billingham. The first of these, known as “Lines 1 to 3”, was built between 1998 and 2009. Lines 4 and 5 followed in 2014. The combined capacity of the incinerators for domestic waste is 642,000 tonnes per year. As with the Wilton 11 plant, the Haverton Hill incinerators burn waste from numerous local authorities, as can be seen from more WikiWaste data below:
Waste transfer
Five of the above authorities are due to transfer their waste-burning from Haverton Hill to the TVERF incinerator at Grangetown, if it gets built. These are:
- County Durham
- Hartlepool
- Middlesbrough
- Redcar & Cleveland
- Stockton-on-Tees
The exceptions to the rule
The remaining two members of the TVERF consortium, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Darlington, currently send their waste to landfill. If and when TVERF becomes operational, landfilling will cease. The following local authorities aren’t part of the TVERF consortium, and will continue to send their waste to Haverton Hill for the foreseeable future:
- Gateshead
- North Tyneside
- Northumberland
- South Tyneside
- Sunderland
Bingo
So, when TVERF begins operation, the set will be complete, and all 12 local authorities in the North East of England will send their waste to Teesside to be burned.
The new kid in town
Thanks to the magic of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, a company called Billingham Energy Ltd has been able to revive an old planning permission. This application dates back to November 2013, with permission granted on 18 February 2014. Back then, a company known as O2N Energy (Billingham) LLP received permission for “development of materials recycling facility and production of energy from waste”.
Revival
The application was revived in January 2025, with the similar wording to before, but with additional detail as follows: “The main building will be portal frame, profiled steel clad with stacks at a maximum height of 80m and 28m.” The revised proposal has increased the annual throughput of Refuse Derived Waste (RDW) from 150,000 tonnes to 200,000 tonnes per year.
Location
The application is for “land South Of Chemoxy International Billingham Site”, with an entrance on New Road. As with all of the other incinerator sites on Teesside, with the exception of TVERF, it’s a former ICI site.
Where it all comes from is a mystery
So, where will the company source its RDW? We’ve already established that the domestic waste from the entire North East of England is fully accounted for. So, will the RDW be brought in from other local authorities in England / Scotland, or imported from overseas? Questions such as this would usually be answered at the Planning Committee stage. But there isn’t going to be one.
Arcane planning procedures
The application is listed by Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council as having an expected decision level of a “delegated decision”. This means that the application can be determined by the council’s officers, without referral to either the Planning Committee or a full council meeting. Some objections have been raised to the use of this procedure, given this perceived gap in local accountability.
Map of Billingham incinerators
A map of the two Haverton Hill incinerators, plus the proposed Billingham plant, is shown below. For reference, I’ve included the nearest housing area, Roscoe Road, which is 600 metres away from the planned incinerator.
Consultation process
The consultation period for the proposed Billingham incinerator will end on 31 January 2026. Details of the planning application can be found by searching for application number 25/0148/VARY on the Stockton Borough Council Planning Portal. Objections to the planning application can also be lodged here.
What, another one?
Industry watchers will be aware of another incinerator project heading down the track in Billingham. This is the euphemistically-named Tees Green Energy Park (TGEP) at Seal Sands. TGEP was granted planning permission in February 2025. But local residents may be able to breathe a sigh of relief. The company behind TGEP went into administration on 8 January 2026.
