A CENTRE that transforms waste into energy is set to be built in a Hampshire town.

The green energy recovery and recycling centre planned for Eastleigh would produce enough energy to power 10,000 homes and create more than 30 jobs.

However, concerns have been raised about which materials would be recycled and the extra traffic it would cause on already congested roads.

Applicant Clean Power is awaiting an environmental permit from the Environment Agency for the site in Chickenhall Lane, allowing it to convert household and commercial waste into a natural gas,. The clean gas would then be used to power engines to make electricity and heat.

Plans also include solar panels and in total the site would produce around 15MW of renewable electricity.

Hampshire County Council has already backed the scheme.

A council report said that when the facility is operating at maximum capacity, it expected 64 HGV vehicle movements on the roads each day as well as 11 staff vehicles, increasing traffic at the Bishopstoke Road and Chickenhall Lane roundabout by no more than five per cent.

Eastleigh Central councillors Keith Trenchard, Wayne Irish and Andy Moore said they were concerned about levels of traffic on surrounding roads such as Bishopstoke Road, Southampton Road and Leigh Road.

Concerns have also been raised about the materials the site would be processing and carrying along Eastleigh residential streets, and the extra pollution to town centre roads.

However, the company says it would receive non-hazardous waste, from which it would sort and remove all recyclable materials before converting organic material, such as garden and food waste, into natural gas using heat only.

Pure food waste would be processed through anaerobic digestion – where bacteria break it down in the absence of air.

Clean Power estimate that the scheme would create around 34 full-time equivalent jobs, in skilled, manual and administration roles and three contracted jobs.

Up to 150 people could be employed during construction.

A spokesman said: “Our plans are a great way to prevent locally produced waste from going to landfill or incineration and to generate renewable electricity and heat.”

The application for an environmental permit is open to comments until June 30.