South Tyne and Wear shortlists final two PFI bidders

The two companies are in the running for a deal which will see the winning bidder develop a facility to treat 200,000 tonnes-a-year of household waste and run any associated transfer stations.

PFI money worth £73.5 million has been secured by the Partnership- which is comprised of Gateshead council, Sunderland city council and South Tyneside council – to go towards the development of the waste treatment facility.

The shortlisted bidders are proposing solutions which include pre-sorting of rubbish for recycling and preparation for treatment. It's proposed that the waste would then be treated either by gasification or energy from waste (EfW).

SITA UK and United Utilities will now be asked for more details about their solutions before further evaluation. Call for final tenders is expected in March 2010, with the aim of appointing a preferred bidder in the summer of 2010 and reaching financial close September 2010. The treatment facility is set to be up and running in 2014.

John Robinson, group director local environmental services at Gateshead council and leader of the Partnership, said: “We are extremely pleased by the high quality of the proposals that have come to the table. We are confident that either of the remaining solutions can provide an effective, much more sustainable alternative to landfill. There is still a lot of work to do with both SITA and United Utilities before we select a preferred bidder and press ahead with delivering the winning solution.”

A vacant industrial site, at Felling in Gateshead, has been earmarked as a possible location for the facility but it won't be known if this site will be used until the preferred solution is decided upon in summer 2010. Not all proposals that are still being considered use the Gateshead site.

The organisation last cut the shortlist from eight to three in June this year (see letsrecycle.com story). The Partnership expects to announce a preferred bidder for the contract in summer 2010, with a waste treatment facility hoped to be up-and-running by 2014.

The treatment contract is just one part of the waste Partnership's £1.6 billion plans to create more sustainable ways of managing waste in Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland.