Families turned out to protest against incinerator plans near Coylton and Ochiltree on Saturday with passing drivers tooting horns to support their cause. 

Dozens of objections have been lodged against an incinerator after firm Barr have applied for planning permission to build the facility at the Killoch Depot off the A70 between Ayr and Cumnock. 

Mum-of-two Lindsay Dick urges people who are against the plan to submit their objections to East Ayrshire Council on the planning portal website. 

The 41-year-old from Coylton said: “I haven’t spoken to anyone who thinks this is a good idea. There is a feeling of anger. We are worried about health and wellbeing being impacted as we believe the incinerator will cause pollution.

“There will also be more traffic and there is a visual impact on the surrounding farmland and communities.”

Coylton resident Jim Gray, 63, said: “There is evidence to suggest that incinerators are worse for the environment because they emit more CO2 than landfill, coal or gas fired power plants.”

He said: “They seem to be built in areas of low employment but they don’t generate many jobs.”

National Farmers’ Union regional manager Christine Cuthbertson is among objectors to the bid. 

There are increasing calls for the Scottish Government to introduce a moratorium on incinerators in the country. 

The proposed Barr facility would have a 75 metre flu stack.

It will process 166,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste per year and save 69,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually according to Barr. 

A design statement submitted by Barr to East Ayrshire Council said the plant will “manage non-hazardous and non-recyclable residual waste.” 

It added: “The proposed (energy recovery plant) ERP has been designed to be an exemplar waste management facility in the context of the existing site use and the area’s industrial heritage. The design of the scheme aims to create an efficient, safe and aesthetically suitable solution for the recovery of waste at Killoch.”

The rubbish processing would generate electricity it is understood. 

Gavin Ramsey, managing director of Barr Environmental, said: “The Killoch Energy Recovery Park project will unlock a wide range of benefits and opportunities locally, regionally and for Scotland as a whole. First and foremost, it will help East Ayrshire to deliver on the Scottish Government’s statutory landfill diversion targets, which aim to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill to just five per cent by 2025 and completely ban the landfilling of biodegradable waste by the same date.

“We need to see significant investment in waste infrastructure of the type we’re proposing or Scotland will not be able to meet that target without sending our waste to be dealt with elsewhere in the UK, and we will have no way of managing the significant amounts of waste that still cannot be recycled.

"In preparing our plans we have conducted careful technical assessments which show that, even using the most conservative of measures, the facility we’re proposing will be operated cleanly, safely and in a completely responsible manner. This extends to the traffic associated with our site as well as the stringent measures we will be putting in place to protect local air quality.”

Consultation has taken place online.