Sussex councils ordered to release waste contract details

The ruling by the Information Commissioner followed an appeal by Friends of the Earth after the councils rejected the organisation's request for full details of the 25-year contract to be disclosed, on grounds of commercial confidentiality.

The Commission, which is an independent body set up to promote access to official information, partially upheld the appeal from Friends of the Earth, earlier this month.

It ruled that while some of the information should be released, the councils were within their rights to withhold other details of the contract.

Pricing contained within the contract, information about emission levels as well as most planning and development information are all to be disclosed

However, information on specific technical information and Veolia's costs and profits can remain confidential.

The two councils and Veolia must now release the information by December 19 – 35 days after the ruling – or appeal by December 12.

A Veoila spokesman: “We read and understood the Information Commissioner's decision and for the most part accept the obligations thereby. We do have issue with the commercial sensitivities and proprietary rights affected by certain aspects of this decision which we are currently reviewing.”

“Public interest”

Friends of the Earth welcomed the Commision's decision because it believes this will now make the contract more transparent – both in terms of cost and how it will affect recycling rates.

Phil Michaels, head of legal at Friends of the Earth has also called on local authorities across the country to publish details of waste contracts on their websites.

He said: “As the first decision relating to local waste contracts this is a very important decision. We are pleased that the Information Commissioner has recognised the very strong public interest in this type of information being released.

“This type of waste contract has major environmental implications and it is essential that such contracts are made available so that members of the public know what their elected representatives are spending their money on and so that they can be properly involved in environmental decision making.”

Alison Walters of Brighton and Hove Friends of the Earth added: “Now, at last, residents of Brighton and East Sussex will be able to make up their own minds about whether the councils are really acting in the public interest, and whether the contract they have agreed to means that much higher recycling and composting targets can be delivered.”

She continued: “Local people will want to be reassured that the council is doing what everyone has told them to do – increase recycling and composting, not just throw it all into the incinerator they intend to dump on Newhaven.”

Veolia South Downs – Veolia Environmental Services business operations in Sussex- signed a contract with the two local authorities in March 2003 for the £1 billion contract which included construction of the energy-from-waste plant.

While some information on the agreement had posted on the council's website, Friends of the Earth wanted a more detailed break down on costs. It submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the council in January 2005 for full details to be released – which were refused – and the appeal to the Commission was lodged in April 2005.