A DONEGAL company has defended plans for a waste plant in one of Ulster’s most historic buildings despite protests from residents.
Connective Energy Holdings Limited, from Cloghan, wants to build an anaerobic digester to process waste and generate electricity at the Herdman buildings in Sion Mills, Co Tyrone.
CEHL has said the energy park will benefit the community and bring jobs to the area.
The process produces a biogas, consisting of methane and carbon dioxide and this can be used directly as fuel to generate electricity. It is widely used in mainland Europe, particularly in Germany.
Up to 100 people gathered at a meeting in the village to voice concern at a planning proposal.
CEHL spokesperson Brendan McSorley said the issues raised by residents had been addressed in the planning application.
“We can’t allay the fears of every single person in Sion Mills, but we want to get the message out there that we are open and anyone who wants to can come and chat to us,” he told BBC Radio Foyle.
“The main thing for us is that it will mean jobs for the village. The construction of this will bring between 60 and 70 jobs and in the long term it will create around 20 jobs.”
But Andy Patton, chairman of the Sion Mills Community Forum said 98% of people at a meeting this week opposed the plans.
Sion Mills resident Karen McGillian said she was objecting on several grounds.
“First of all the noise that comes with a site of this size, the odour and the amount of traffic with slurry tanks, the tractors and diggers and all the other traffic associated that’s going to be coming up and down the road,” she said.
“As a resident of the village, what I had hoped would happen here would be that something would be created that would continue on the legacy that Herdman’s brought to the village. You can see the beauty of it and you can still see the potential it has.
“I would seriously question the contribution in terms of the Herdman’s legacy that this particular plant would bring to the village.”
Celia Ferguson said: ”My family actually built Sion Mills, I was a Herdman before I married a Ferguson.
“This is the most important industrial heritage site, certainly in Ireland and one of the most important in the British isles.
“I think it’s probably not the right place to have such a large anaerobic digestor.
“It would be a very, very large structure and it’s in the curtilage of the mill buildings which would detract from the view of the mill which is sacrosanct really in heritage terms.”