The “torpedoing” of a £300 million recycling scheme in Bradford is forcing the Council to look at different ways of dealing with waste.

In January, Bradford and Calderdale councils will take the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to a judicial review to try to reverse its decision to withdraw £62 million of funding for the scheme that would have recycled household waste and generated electricity for up to 20,000 homes.

The proposed waste treatment plant (pictured) would have been built at Bowling Back Lane and created 300 jobs during construction and 60 once it was up and running.

DEFRA funding was essential for the project, a partnership between the two councils, and the authorities have since criticised the organisation for failing to properly explain their decision.

Bradford Council had already spent £5 million on the scheme before DEFRA announced it was withdrawing funding in February. Next Tuesday its environment and sport scrutiny committee will receive an update on the project. Council leader David Green said: “Clearly this current scheme has been torpedoed by the Government’s decision.

“We are having to consider alternative options and that may well mean we look at some sort of soft marketing test to find an alternative way of dealing with domestic waste.”