The two companies are bidding for a contract that is supported by a £25m Private Finance Initiative grant and forms part of the county’s ambitious aim of reaching a 45% recycling rate by 2015. Plans include improvements to several civic amenity sites, the creation of new CA sites and new composting facilities.
West Sussex county council spokesman Nigel Galloway confirmed: “The shortlist has been whittled down to two.” The final decision will be made in the next couple of months.
In February, West Sussex county council and its seven districts and boroughs signed a Memorandum of Understanding, giving their support to the new contract.
An important part of the contract will be the replacing of the waste management complex at Sompting, currently run by SITA, with a new facility on a different site.
Mr Galloway explained: “Sompting has to close – the plant only had temporary planning permission. The county council applied for a permanent permit, but it was denied.”
The council spokesman added that there has been a plant of some kind on the site for 55 years. However, it now falls inside an Area of Natural Beauty, which contributed to the planning permission being refused. The present permission expires in December 2006 and a new site has not been identified.
Local plan
The county is also preparing its waste local plan which is designed to ensure that a sufficient number and range of sites are available.
“The county’s waste plan is heavily geared towards recycling, and incineration is only one of the options. No decisions have been taken, and even if a site – for any purpose including landfill – is included in the final plan, it will still be subject to many other factors including planning permissions,” said Mr Galloway.
Register for free to comment