Villagers are celebrating after securing a major victory in their long-running campaign against a controversial waste energy plant. 

A years-long saga over plans for an anaerobic digester plant in Bressingham, near Diss, has come to an end after South Norfolk Council (SNC) rejected the plans. 

The plant - which uses organic waste and crops to create biomethane that can be used to produce power - has already been partly built following a now-obsolete planning application from 2015. 

Revised plans have had to be re-submitted by the company, Deal Farm Biogas, after years of disputes with locals and objections from County Hall's highways department. 

Eastern Daily Press: The Bressingham Anaerobic digester

The plans have seen mass opposition from locals, with 114 letters of objection submitted to SNC, including from local MPs Richard Bacon and Liz Truss.

Concerns relate to the safety of the plans, which critics argue will bring dangerous amounts of lorry traffic to narrow country roads.

A planning official told Wednesday's SNC development committee the plans represented a "danger" to road users and was not suitable for a scheme of that scale.

Councillors at SNC slammed the plans as "completely inappropriate" for the area, an "abomination" and a "waste of officers' time".

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Graham Minshull said he had been on the committee when the original plans were brought forward.

“It certainly wasn't anything like what we were presented with today,” he said. 

“I find it extraordinary that a company would go ahead and produce something that is an industrial development on land that is in the countryside.

"I only wish we had the power to fine people that did this because it is quite clear that it is not the planning application that was submitted.

"It is a complete abomination on the countryside and I don’t know how the people who live nearby can put up with it.

"I will certainly be hoping that we can get it taken down as soon as possible and restored to what it should be.” 

The scheme was unanimously rejected and officers are now looking to take enforcement action. 

A history of the AD plant

The plant has been controversial since a previous planning application was approved in 2015.

When locals had begun to hope the scheme had been forgotten, development finally got under way in 2018.

But as the plant was being built residents began to voice concerns that it was "completely changed" from the approved scheme.

By October 2021, the developers were instructed by South Norfolk Council to stop work on the site, with officers questioning the legality of the development.

Deal Farm Biogas (DFB), the company behind the plans, then submitted a new planning application. But residents continued to raise concerns.

Their campaign caught the attention of the local MP Richard Bacon and later South West Norfolk MP Liz Truss, who joined them in their objections.

DFB then pulled their application in June, before submitting a revised and scaled-back design.