A fundraising campaign to pay for a legal challenge to Gloucestershire County Council's incinerator has reached a fundraising milestone.

A group calling itself Community R4C has revealed its Crowdfunding bid has reached £10,000 - a third of the way towards its £30,000 target.

The group's campaign focuses on what it calls the hike in cost of the waste incinerator, visible to all travelling through the county along the M5 motorway.

R4C's goal is to "expose the way the tender has been handled stating it is a breach of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR2015)".

The cost of the controversial incinerator project based at Javelin Park, off Junction 12 of the M5, spiralled upwards from £450 million nominal tonnage payments when the contract was awarded in 2013 to £600 million - an increase of around 30 per cent.

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Community R4C filed a lawsuit in January against the local authority insisting the contract should have been retendered.

Ken McEwan, a lawyer for Bristol-based firm Gregg Latchams, acting for the group said: "There is clearly a case to answer, we have received an initial response from the legal counsel for Gloucestershire County Council, we are preparing our case and we will work with Community R4C to push for an early trial."

Campaigners, who have been opposing the waste incinerator near junction 12 of the M5 for four years, claim the project is damaging to health, the environment and council funds.

Cllr Nigel Moor, cabinet member responsible for waste for Gloucestershire County Council, said: "The council ran a competitive process following procurement law to select a company to deal with the county's household waste that can't be reduced, reused or recycled.

"The council received a legal claim from R4C in relation to that process and has lodged a robust defence to R4C's claim. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage pending the court's consideration of the claim."

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