Ambitious plans to build a £370m energy plant on the edge of Norwich city centre have reached a major milestone.

Norwich Evening News: Architects' image of what the proposed Generation Park in Norwich would look like.Architects' image of what the proposed Generation Park in Norwich would look like. (Image: 2011 Grimshaw Architects)

A formal planning application has been lodged for the Generation Park scheme which aims to make Norwich the greenest city in Europe and has been more than a decade in the making.

The University of East Anglia is one of the prime investors in the proposed energy park at the 30-acre Utilities site – a patch of wasteland between Thorpe Hamlet and Whitlingham.

Proposals, which feature a straw pellet-burning energy plant, were explained to the public in a series of consultation events in recent months before a formal application was submitted to Norwich City Council, the Broads Authority and South Norfolk Council this month.

This has now been validated, with a three-month consultation period before the scheme goes before planning councillors.

Norwich Evening News: Architects' image of what the proposed Generation Park in Norwich would look like.Architects' image of what the proposed Generation Park in Norwich would look like. (Image: 2011 Grimshaw Architects)

The scheme also includes 120 homes, student accommodation, an education centre, a research base, 11 acres of parkland, riverside moorings plus new cycle routes and walkways.

Professor Kevin Hiscock, head of the School of Environmental Sciences at the UEA, said: 'The submission of the Generation Park Norwich planning application is an important occasion for the School of Environmental Sciences.

'The school has long been a centre of international research excellence in climate science, carbon budgets, environmental pollution, and integrated sustainability and it is fitting that the idea originated here.

'We have continued to support and help develop the original concept and are excited at the possibility of it happening.'

He added that the scheme would be a 'major asset' for the city.

Professor Trevor Davies, of Generation Park Norwich, said a bridge over the Yare would help link Norwich together, and that plans had been fine-tuned after consultation - especially in regard to the proposed cycleways and fish lake.

He added: 'It will make Norwich the greenest city in the UK if not Europe.'

Plans to use renewable straw pellets, a by-product of food production, have the approval of the National Farmers Union.

Pellets would be delivered to the site by train.

There would be more than 500 jobs during the construction phase, and once operational there would be in more than 100 jobs on site, as well as secondary employment opportunities created elsewhere.

The people behind the project claim that the plant would generate enough energy to power 88,000 homes.

For details, see www.generationparknorwich.com