DEFRA to hand out 24 million for local authority recycling

The money will go to English local authorities that narrowly missed out on being awarded funding in the second round of the 140m Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund in 2002.

Making the announcement today Mr Morley said: “I am pleased that we can support more local authority schemes. We are changing the economics of waste disposal to make waste minimisation and recycling much more attractive and supporting worthwhile local authority proposals to give local people the infrastructure they need to be a part of this environmental revolution. I hope we will all soon see recycling as the 'norm', not the exception.”

The grants are being taken from Landfill Tax money resulting from the re-structuring of the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme. About 100m is being made available from the Landfill Tax each year for public spending in recycling and sustainable waste management. About 13m has gone into the Legacy Fund, set up to smooth over the transition to the LTCS successor, but this has been much lower than was originally planned for by the government.

From the 24 million, London will receive 3.6 million to be allocated by the London Recycling Fund, a partnership involving the Mayor, the Greater London Assembly, the Association of London Government and London Waste Action.

Elsewhere in England, the details of the amounts going to each successful authority have yet to be finalised, but the government has announced which councils will receive funds.

The successful projects are:

• South Staffordshire Council,
• South Derbyshire District Council,
• Bracknell Forest Borough Council Partnership Project,
• Rother District Council,
• Rutland Council,
• St Albans District Council,
• Suffolk Coastal District Council,
• Milton Keynes Council,
• Northampton Borough Council,
• Shepway District Council,
• Essex County Council Partnership Project,
• Stafford Borough Council,
• Vale of the White Horse District Council.

The government has also said it is to discuss with 10 other projects “where local authority proposals were thought to have considerable merit but where there are outstanding technical deliverability or value for money questions to be resolved.”