A PUBLIC inquiry into Hills Waste's bid to expand its use of the waste tip at Lower Compton was halted by an inspector after he decided he did not have enough information about the environmental impact

Now villagers living near the tip will have to wait at least another five months to find out if Hills Waste Solutions' appeal has been successful.

Hills’ temporary planning permission to operate on the site ends on December 31.

The inquiry at the Civic Centre in Trowbridge, was halted by inspector Brian Sims just hours after it opened on Tuesday. More than 30 members of the Calne and District SOS group were at the meeting.

Louisa Reis, of The Freeth, Compton Bassett,who has been campaigning against the Hills site for ten years, said: "I missed my child's first day at school to get here today. This is so important to us, I cannot tell you. It is life changing. It is wrong to live with this amount of uncertainty.

"I have three daughters in Compton Bassett and I don't want them to grow up like this."

Representatives of Hills Waste and Wiltshire Waste Alliance, which is are fighting the firm in a bid to uphold the refusal, debated for hours about the environmental evidence, which Mr Sims labelled as confusing.

He said: "I regret that we did not have a pre-inquiry meeting because I took on the case so late, and I will not resume this inquiry until I know what this case is about.

"I urge that there should be a statement of common grounds, bearing in mind it will be more of a statement of uncommon grounds, and that a summary of the evidence be produced."

Hills Waste said afterwards: "We are disappointed with the need to adjourn the inquiry and are concerned about the implications that this delay may have on the management of Wiltshire’s household waste in the future.

"The Lower Compton facility is a key operational site in the context of Wiltshire’s Municipal Waste Management Strategy 2012 and has been identified as a Strategic Waste Management site in the Wiltshire and Swindon Waste Site Allocations Local Plan adopted in February 2013 by Wiltshire Council.

"Hills will continue to work to provide the planning inspector with all the information needed to ensure that the inquiry will go ahead in February 2017 and bring to a close this long outstanding planning application to extend the Lower Compton materials recycling facility."

Coun Tony Sturgis, Wiltshire Council’s cabinet member for waste, yesterday refused to comment on the implications of the appeal being adjourned. He claimed he was unable to say anything because he was not present at the inquiry.

Although Wiltshire Council originally refused permission for Hills to extend its operation, it is not sending officers to defend the decision, to the annoyance of protestors.

A Wiltshire Waste Alliance spokesman said: "The conduct by Hills Waste is clearly unreasonable and we’ll be seeking Hills Waste to pay our costs caused by this adjournment.

"Although it’s frustrating to have to wait until February, we’re very pleased with the inspector’s decision that the environmental statement was totally inadequate. In light of the inspector’s comments, Wiltshire Council’s decision not to defend the appeal looks indefensible and must now be reconsidered."

Wiltshire Council was unable to comment at the time of going to press yesterday despite being asked on Tuesday afternoon.