A LEADING Worcestershire councillor has defended a bill for the county's £165 million incinerator spiralling 2,000 per cent of course - saying he "expected" the anomaly.

As your Worcester News revealed last month, almost £900,000 was spent on legal costs and consultancy fees for the Hartlebury plant last year despite the county council budgeting for just £42,000.

The spending has been heavily criticised by campaigners who have tried to stop the facility going ahead, who have labelled it "astonishing".

Councillor Anthony Blagg, the cabinet member for the environment, said the leadership knew all along that the original budget was going to prove futile.

He also told your Worcester News that finance chiefs at County Hall had earmarked some cash from the reserves pot - a kitty stashed away for emergencies - in the knowledge that the legal and consultancy fees would rise.

"We were faced with a choice of either cancelling the contract or going ahead with a minor variation to build the energy from waste plant," he said.

"We knew all along there was going to be extra costs from that, and we planned for it.

"Whatever technology we decided to use to dispose of our rubbish, there was always going to be that contract variation (with West Mercia Waste, the firm which will be running the plant) and money from our reserves was specifically put aside for this.

"Waste collection is the only service that touches every single household in Worcestershire.

"There will always be costs associated with that and I've said all along this is the right one - it's not like we didn't know about it and didn't plan for it, we knew it was coming."

Work has now started on the incinerator, which is due to open in Hartlebury in 2017.

The waste plant, which will burn 20,000 of tonnes of rubbish a year from both Worcestershire and Herefordshire, was approved by the county council back in January after being talked about since the mid-1990s.

All the rubbish burned at the site will help generate electricity for the National Grid.