Work to start on new North London Waste Plan

Work to develop a new North London Waste Plan has been scheduled to start in early 2013, after the plan was formally withdrawn for not meeting its legal requirements.

Officers from Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest councils, had drawn up the plan to identify a range of suitable sites for future waste management facilities in North London.

But in August, planning inspector Andrew Mead recommended that the plan be rejected after ruling that the north London boroughs had not met their Duty to Cooperate and had failed to engage sufficiently with planning authorities outside of the capital in producing the document (see letsrecycle.com story).

In particular two organisations, the South East Waste Planning Advisory Group (SEWPAG) and East of England Waste Technical Advisory Body (EoEWTAB) argued that they had not been consulted on the proposals, which included sending significant amounts of waste outside of the capital to be buried in landfill.

Now, the seven London Boroughs have opted to accept that the Planning Inspector’s recommendation that the Plan is unsound and cannot be adopted, signalling the beginning of work to produce a new version of the document.

Plan

It is expected that preparation of the new plan will begin in early 2013, a process which it is thought could take up to two years.

A spokesperson for the North London Waste Plan, said: We have listened to the decision of the planning inspector and while we are disappointed with his decision, we believe the most appropriate way forward is to not adopt the current plan and start work on a new one as early as possible in the New Year.

We need to deal with more of our own rubbish and were determined to produce a plan that meets the needs of North London and identifies how the waste management facilities we need can be provided.

But, the spokesperson added that the work carried out to produce the original plan, which took around five and a half years, would not be wasted as it would form the basis of the new plan.

The spokesperson said: Well take the information we gathered in producing the original plan and use that as the basis for the new version, while taking into account the comment s made by the planning inspector, so the work weve done to date will not be wasted. Its worth bearing in mind that the original plan was produced before the duty to co-operate was introduced.

Procurement

Despite the ruling, the procurement process for the North London Waste Authoritys PFI contracts to provide waste facilities and services from 2014 are not expected to be affected, although it is thought that the delay could cause problems for the locations of some of the sites, as the plan included designated sites for waste facilities.

Plans for one of the designated sites, Pinkham Way in Haringey, have attracted strong opposition from local residents. The planning application for the site was placed on hold while the scrutiny of the NWLP ran its expected course, it is not yet known when the application will proceed.