RAMSBOTTOM is celebrating a "brilliant victory" after controversial plans for an anaerobic digestion plant at Fletcher Bank Quarry stalled.

Plans tabled by Marshalls and Peel Environmental were thrown out by the Secretary of State, after a public inquiry.

The developers lodged an appeal against the Bury planning committee's original decision to turn them down last year.

The Secretary of State has announced that he agrees with the findings made by the inspector during the public inquiry in March.

Politicians and the Ramsbottom Against Waste Site campaign group, which was set up to fight the scheme, have declared victory.

The applicants now have six weeks to ask for permission to challenge the decision in the High Court, and if they do not, the project plans will have reached a dead end.

However, they could also start the planning process again by tabling new plans to Bury Council.

A spokesman said the developers were now considering their options.

Residents argued that the scheme, which was designed to create electricity by using food by-products such as feedstock, would mean extra noise, more traffic and bad odours for the town.

The developers maintained it would provide a clean source of energy and boost the town's economy.

Bury North MP David Nuttall, who gave evidence during the public inquiry and asked for the decision to be 'called in' by the Secretary of State, said he was happy with the decision.

He said: "I am delighted for the people of Ramsbottom and especially Shuttleworth that the appeal has been turned down.

"I know so many people have put a lot of effort in to preparing the case and I am sure the whole community will want to thank them.

"This would not have been an appropriate location for such a plant and I am pleased the inspector and the Secretary of State agreed."

The RAWS group was set up shortly after residents and councillors first heard of the plans, and the decision follows nearly two years of campaigning.

Ramsbottom Cllr Ian Bevan, of one the lead figures in the campaign, said: "As a residents group, we have spent literally hundreds and hundreds of hours volunteering our time on campaigning against this planning application.

"We have now reached the position where Peel’s plans have been resoundingly rejected by Bury Council, the planning inspector and now the Secretary of State.

"I appreciate that Peel and Marshalls have a right to appeal to the High Court but we would urge them to now abandon their plans and build any AD facilities on brownfield locations and not on our green belt land."

Ramsbottom Cllr Luise Fitzwalter declared the decision a "brilliant victory" for Ramsbottom and Bury Council.

She said: "The whole community came together and fought of this threat to our beautiful town.

"Thanks to the hundreds of people who got involved and especially to those from Ramsbottom Against Waste Site.”

Cllr Sandra Walmsley, Bury Council's cabinet member for resource and regulation, said the decision meant the council's planning committee had been vindicated.

She said: "This has been a long process which has stirred up a lot of emotion among residents in Ramsbottom.

"I am confident that the council and its staff dealt with the whole matter in a scrupulously fair and professional way, and I welcome the fact that this has effectively been recognised in the decision by the Inspector and the Secretary of State."

Kieran Tames, development surveyor at Peel, added: “We are naturally disappointed with the planning appeal decision and we will now need to fully consider the decision with our stakeholders in order to decide how to proceed.”