A NEW incinerator on the Waterside will increase pollution levels and place extra strain on traffic-choked roads, it is claimed.

Shanks Chemical Services is building a second £17million burner to destroy cattle waste that piled up during the BSE crisis.

The firm has already received consent from the Environment Agency to operate the new incinerator at its site in Charleston Road, Hardley.

And the controversial plan cleared another hurdle yesterday when district planning and development control committee members decided not to object.

But councillors expressed concern about a steady increase in the number of lorries using the A326 between Totton and Fawley. They also said Shanks should be asked to help fund the council's air quality monitoring programme.

Fawley Parish Council is strongly opposed to the company's application for another burner and asked parish clerk Tony Le Riche to address the committee.

He said: "This is another substantial pollution development on the Waterside - and there's enough pollution there already."

The Shanks application coincides with plans to build a domestic waste incinerator at Marchwood and a container terminal at Dibden Bay.

Fawley councillor John Coles said the three schemes would result in more lorries on local roads.

"A lot of new industry is being dumped on the Waterside," he said. "Sites will be served by the A326, which Hampshire County Council says is already overloaded. We are putting too much pressure on the infrastructure."

Councillors were told that Shanks had already started to build the burner as it believed it was "permitted development".

But the burner requires the consent of the county council's roads and development sub-committee, which is being recommended to approve the scheme on Monday.

A Shanks spokesman said: "It's a very modern piece of equipment that will produce extremely-low emissions. It will generate extra traffic, but not enough to make any significant difference."

The proposal stems from a 1996 government decision to cull and incinerate cows over 30 months old following the BSE scare.

The new burner is designed to process 60,000 tonnes of waste a year although none of the material is from cows infected with BSE.