A waste contractor has applied to burn more than 200,000 tonnes of waste a year if it gets the go-ahead to build a waste incinerator.

Onyx South Downs, now Veolia Environmental Services, has already lodged a planning application to build an incinerator at North Quay, Newhaven.

But it has now also applied for a Pollution Prevent and Control Permit from the Environment Agency to allow it to burn 210,000 tonnes of waste annually if the incinerator plans are approved.

But campaigners against the incinerator have sent letters calling for the permit to be refused. If the company cannot get the permit then the incinerator could not be built Professor Chris Chatwin, from Lewes, and chairman of opposition group Defenders of the Ouse Valley and Estuary (DOVE), has written a 49-page letter of objection to the agency.

His letter contains 59 summary points he asks the agency to consider before issuing a permit, including facts that incineration increases the amount of harmful waste, the burner would be an energy and waste disposal facility and not an energy recovery plant, and that the landscape would be harmed.

Many of the 59 points go into complex detail about the pollution and environmental impact.

A spokesman for DOVE said:

"We at DOVE certainly believe it is practicable to prevent air pollution from a waste incinerator - by not building it in the first place, and employ practicable alternatives."

DOVE is holding an open meeting today at the Hillcrest Centre in Newhaven at 7.30pm.

People who go to the meeting will be given an update on the campaign and help will be given to those who want to write letters to the Environment Agency about the incinerator.

Friends of the Earth and members of the Green Party across Sussex are also opposed to the planned incinerator.

Those opposed to the incinerator want to get the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to call in the waste local plan, the incinerator planning application and now the application for a permit to be made to the Environment Agency.