CAMPAIGNERS against the £4.3 million North Powys Bulking Facility at Abermule have been told that a consultation into the environmental permit Powys Council needs to run the site "will not be reopened".
But Natural Resources Wales says the public will get another chance to have a say over the permit.
The council has been asked for additional details of how it plans to handle safety issues at the site, with the third such request for more detail having been revealed last Friday.
The authority has a deadline of January 31 to provide more information on a number of issues including how to prevent and deal with fires as well as how long food waste will be on site.
A public consultation allowed villagers to have their say on the permit application was held earlier from May 20 to July 1, 2021.
Mark Pearce of Abermule Communities Together said: “As Powys County Council have been given more time and a lot of new information has been submitted, then we feel that it’s unreasonable that NRW are unwilling to accept comments or objections sent to them based on this additional material.”
NRW's mid Wales operations manager Ann Weedy said: “We understand that the environmental permit application is a matter of high public interest.
“In line with our procedure, the public consultation held in the summer of 2021 ran for six weeks as opposed to the standard four weeks.
“This consultation will not reopen.”
She added that it wasn’t “uncommon” to ask for extra information on applications of “this size and complexity.”
She explained that once NRW has made a draft decision either way on the permit, a second public consultation will take place.
Ms Weedy said: “We will take into consideration any relevant comments before reaching a final decision.”
A spokesman for Powys County Council said that “it is expected” that there will be requests for more information.
The spokesman said: “This does demonstrate the stringent requirements to obtain and operate under such permits.
“We are confident that the information will be provided in the time-scale requested.”
PCC proposes that the site accept and process up to 22,500 tonnes a year of non-hazardous waste and a maximum of 425 tonnes is proposed at any one time.
The site is supposed to receive recycling collected from households across Montgomeryshire, where it will be squashed together or “bulked,” so that it can be more easily transported to processors to turn into new products.
The council has said that the facility is needed so it can hit Welsh Government recycling targets.
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