500 jobs at risk in glass fight big; Permit unlawful, claim rivals.

Byline: BY TONY McDONOUGH Deputy Business Editor

A LEGAL challenge that could put 500 new glass factory jobs in Ellesmere Port in jeopardy began yesterday in the High Court.

Irish-based Quinn Glass this year completed the construction of Europe's largest glass making factory at the former Ince Power Station.

However, in a case expected to last for three days, one of Quinn's fiercest rivals, Yorkshire-based Rockware Glass, is claiming the decision by Chester City Council to grant Quinn a Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) Permit to operate the plant was "unlawful".

Rockware is also claiming that the council should have awaited the outcome of a planning inquiry into the factory ordered by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and due to begin on November 22.

Quinn fired up the first of its giant 600 tonne furnaces and began producing glass in April, although it is not yet fully operational.

Mr Richard Gordon QC, for Rockware, told Judge Andrew Gilbart there is currently no valid planning permission for the Chester plant which will have capacity to make 1.2bnglass containers-a-year. Both Chester City Council and neighbouring authority, Ellesmere Port and Neston Borough Council, are in favour of the plant.

Mr Gordon told the judge Chester City Council had decided to grant Quinn Glass the required PPC Permit on the very same day that the planning application was called in by Mr Prescott.

The QC argued Chester had failed to follow government guidelines which require that PPC permits should only be issued if the "Best Available Techniques" (BAT) are to be used to minimise emissions of potential pollutants - particularly oxides of nitrogen (NOx) into the environment.

The plant is fitted with Cross-Fired Regenerative Furnaces, and Rockware says the council "erred in law" when it accepted they were BAT-compliant. The company says new Oxyfuel Furnaces, which produce far lower NOx emissions, should have been considered as an alternative.

However, Chester City Council insists it was right to reject Oxyfuel Furnaces as such technology was "untried" in the UK on such a scale and would also require storage of large quantities of potentially hazardous oxygen on site.

And Mr Reuben Taylor, for Quinn Glass, alleged that Rockware's "only interest in commencing these proceedings is to prevent competition from entering into the market".

He argued Rockware had no legal "interest" in the environmental impact of the Quinn plant and its "unarguable" judicial review challenge should be dismissed on that ground alone.

Mr Taylor said that, in any event, the factory, when fully operational, "would be the cleanest container glass plant in the UK". Even if the tight emission limits laid down by the city council were exceeded, there was no evidence that there would be any significant effect on local air quality or any risk of harm to human health, added the barrister.

Claims that the council erred in rejecting the option of Oxyfuel Furnaces were also "fundamentally misconceived", he told the judge Mr Taylor added that, if Rockware's challenge succeeds, and the plant's furnace has tobe shut down, the costs will be enormous.

The pounds 120m plant had a pounds 4.9m grant from the NWDA