PEOPLE living near a household waste recycling plant say they could be forced to suffer its expansion because planners see them as 'less articulate'.

James Wells, who lives in St George's Road, Fordington , Dorchester, says plans to build rubbish facilities on St George's Road and Edison Avenue have been forced on the area because residents are less likely to make a fuss than those in Poundbury.

Mr Wells's comments came on the second day of an inquiry into the waste local plan, being held at the Corn Exchange in Dorchester.

Mr Wells told planning inspector Brent Mundy that a new recycling plant would destroy a much-loved meadow used by local people.

He said: "I use the footpath in that field, as Thomas Hardy did on his way from Max Gate to the church at Stinsford and on to his birthplace at Bockhampton.

"I read in the waste plan that the field is not so valuable in landscape terms, and that the loss of the site would not mean much.

"I hate being told that I and my fellow residents are not losing much. It means a great deal to us."

Mr Wells said there were other areas of Dorchester that should be considered in preference to Fordington for a waste centre, specifically Poundbury.

He said: "Rightly or wrongly the feeling that many of us have is that this has not been handled rightly and we haven't really been treated equally.

"We feel as if we have been treated as if we're not going to make as much fuss as those in Poundbury because people think we're not so articulate.

"The have-nots in Fordington have had this facility for 40 years."

Andrew Price, Dorset County Council head of planning, said a number of sites around Dorchester had been considered and only the Fordington site had met all the criteria.

He said: "We haven't been able to identify a better site in a town which has difficulty in providing opportunities for the kind of development that we need.

"Waste management facilities are not popular with the people who live near them, that's why we prefer them on industrial land, but there aren't sites in Dorchester that we can use like that."

The inquiry also heard objections to the plan from West Dorset District Council planning policy officer Malcolm Woodward.

He said the district council objected to the St George's Road and Edison Avenue site because of traffic, landscaping and general planning issues.

He said: "The district council agrees that the provision of a new recycling centre is of critical importance to Dorchester, but it must be in the right place.

"We have long-standing traffic concerns with St George's Road, and Lubbecke Way is residential.

"Dorchester is an expanding town. There will be a substantial increase in traffic in the years ahead. We have concerns about the way this increase would affect these roads."

Richard Dodson, principal planner traffic planning for Dorset County Council said using Government models St George's Road was currently operating way below capacity.

The inquiry is continuing.