A CEMENT firm is seeking planning permission to instal equipment at its Clitheroe plant for the test-burning of scrap tyres.

Castle Cement has applied to instal an elevator, conveyor belt and hopper at its Ribblesdale works to feed chipped tyres into the kiln.

The Environment Agency gave the go-ahead for the company to burn tyres in Clitheroe earlier this year and test-burning is expected to start in September.

The company wants to use scrap tyres as an alternative fuel to the controversial chemical waste Cemfuel for a trial period. It has already claimed a 20 per cent reduction in poisonous emissions from burning tyres at its Ketton plant in Rutland.

Environment watchdogs believe burning tyres in cement kilns is cleaner than conventional fuels, with lower emissions of nitrogen oxides.

Castle Cement's proposals, first announced five years ago, involve the use of chipped tyres to provide up to 25 per cent of the energy required to fire its dry-process kiln 7.

The company claims the exceptionally high temperatures of the kiln will burn the chipped rubber without any of the black smoke or smells normally associated with tyre-burning.

More than 40 million tyres are scrapped in the UK each year and disposal is a major headache for the government following an EC decision to ban the practice of burying them in landfill sites from 2003.