PEOPLE living near a Worcestershire landfill site may have to put up with more lorries arriving to dump rubbish.

Mercia Waste Management wants Worcestershire County Council to scrap limits on the amount of waste it can dispose of at Hill and Moor, near Wyre Piddle.

Mercia Waste Management's subsidiary, Severn Waste Services, runs the landfill and is permitted to bury 356,000 tonnes a year. At the moment more than 200 lorries travel to and from the site daily.

The company has now asked the county council to allow more rubbish to be ferried to Hill and Moor, although this would not require the site to be enlarged.

"We've not got a fixed amount in mind," said John Lashley, Severn Waste Services' operations director.

He denied suggestions the firm wanted to bury more waste because of Severn Waste Services' failure to have a highly controversial £40m incinerator built in Kidderminster.

"The main reason for the application is that the planning condition was imposed to cut the number of vehicles travelling through Wyre Piddle," added Mr Lashley.

"But now the Wyre Piddle bypass is going to be built, we think the condition should be lifted as soon as possible."

Ministers gave the go-ahead six months ago for the bypass, a project talked about for more than 25 years, to become a reality this year.

But the programme has been delayed because of the impact of foot-and-mouth restrictions in southern Worcestershire.

Rather than starting in September, construction is now scheduled for early 2002.

Mid-Worcestershire MP Peter Luff has protested to the county council about the application.

"I've been told this is linked with the refusal of an incinerator at Kidderminster," insisted an angry Mr Luff.

"My constituents shouldn't have to put up with everyone else's waste. It's time there was an 'energy from waste' plant somewhere in north Worcestershire."

He said allowing any increase in traffic before the bypass was built as "utterly unacceptable".