Central Bedfordshire council has today (October 5) named a shortlist of seven bidders for its long-term residual household waste treatment contract, the Central Bedfordshire Energy and Recycling, or BEaR, project.
The successful bidder will be expected to develop waste treatment capacity to deal with up to 75,000 tonnes-a-year of residual waste, as well as redeveloping three household waste recycling centres, relocating another, providing a waste transfer station, provide gritting salt storage capacity and offering organic waste treatment.
I'm very pleased with the numbers of bidders going through to the next stage. With this many companies in the running, there is real potential for a range of solutions to come forward
Councillor Budge Wells
The seven contenders have been drawn from a list of 10 unnamed bidders who initially entered the procurement process for the 25 to 30 year contract in July 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story).
They are:
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AmeyCespa consortium – led by the Spanish-owned waste company;
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Covanta Energy Limited consortium – led by the US-based energy-from-waste incineration specialists;
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Interserve Investments Limited consortium – led by the support services company;
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New Earth Solutions Group Limited consortium – led by the organics recycling specialists;
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Veolia ES Aurora Limited – the French-owned waste management company;
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Viridor Waste Management Limited – Taunton-based waste and recycling firm;
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Waste Recycling Group Limited consortium – led by the Northampton-based waste management company.
The council was not able to reveal details of the other companies involved in the five consortiums featured on the shortlist at time of publication.
No technology or site is expected to be chosen until later in the procurement process. However, the inclusion of Covanta on the shortlist would appear to raise the potential for the large-scale energy-from-waste incinerator the company is proposing to build at Rookery Pit in Bedfordshire to be used to treat Central Bedfordshire's residual waste.
Covanta's plans for the plant, which will be one of the largest of its kind in the UK, are currently being considered by the independent Infrastructure Planning Commission (see letsrecycle.com story).
Difficulties
Progress on the BEaR procurement comes after the project initially faced significant difficulties. In particular, it suffered the withdrawal of both Bedford (see letsrecycle.com story) and Luton borough councils (see letsrecycle.com story) from the partnership last year due to concerns over the project's escalating costs.
And, it also had two applications for PFI funding rejected by Defra (see letsrecycle.com story).
Despite this, Central Bedfordshire began procuring the contract on its own in June 2010, and, commenting on today's announcement, the project's spokesman, councillor Budge Wells, welcomed the progress made to date.
“I'm very pleased with the numbers of bidders going through to the next stage. With this many companies in the running, there is real potential for a range of solutions to come forward,” he said.
“Whatever solution is chosen, waste reduction and recycling continues to be top priority for our council; however we need to establish greener ways of treating the remaining waste, rather than sending it to landfill,” he added.
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Next steps
The BEaR project team are now set to evaluate the technical, financial and legal aspects of each bid and announce a narrowed-down shortlist in spring 2011, with further reduction in the number of bidders expected until the selection of a preferred bidder in spring 2012.
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