TAMWORTH mayor Col Murray says council will likely forge ahead with plans to establish a biogas facility, regardless of whether a new jail is ever built in the city.
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He said a potential business partner had expressed interest in creating a $100 million development, generating about 300 jobs, off the back of the plant.
Tamworth Regional Council wrote to the state government in September to gauge its interest in developing a prison in association with the “renewable energy concept”.
The ambitious $300 million project could have seen the biogas plant power a large-scale commercial glasshouse operation and a new correctional centre.
However, a response from NSW Attorney-General Brad Hazzard this week said no decisions had been made on the state’s future prison requirements.
The letter, which has been passed on to council by Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson, is understood to have made no mention of the biogas plant concept.
Cr Murray said the biogas plant, which is still in its formative planning stage, could certainly still proceed without a jail connected to it.
“We have had quite a lot of interest from a very large business partner in terms of a new investment in the order of maybe $100 million, with potentially about 300 jobs attached to our biomass plant,” he said.
“Our council would be very keen to ensure that we don’t miss any opportunities as far as capturing that new industry and new jobs.”
Mr Anderson said any issues surrounding the biogas plant did not fall under the auspices of Mr Hazzard’s portfolio.
“In relation to the biomass plant, that’s a matter for council and (the Department of) Planning,” he said.
“In my view, this is a completely separate issue with corrective services, it comes under the Attorney-General’s department and that’s what he dealt with.”
The biogas plant concept forms part of council’s continuing quest to reduce its annual electricity bill, estimated at $3.5 million.
The facility, which would cost in excess of $10 million to build, would be fuelled by an energy crop grown with the city’s waste water.