We should like to thank all the companies for their participation in what was a fair and robust evaluation
Cheshire county council
The four are waste firms Viridor Waste Management and Waste Recycling Group; services company United Utilities; and a joint venture between waste firm Shanks Waste Management and chemical firm INEOS Chlor. They have been selected by Cheshire county council from an original list of 13 bidders (see letsrecycle.com story) .
The companies will now be asked to submit more detailed technical and financial bids, outlining how they intend to treat household residual waste and divert it from landfill.
Although the bids are at this stage confidential, Cheshire council said they covered a “range of technologies” including mechanical biological treatment and energy from waste.
The county council has specified no specific technology, but its reference project – for the sake of qualifying for government funding through the Private Finance Iniative (PFI) – was based around mechanical biological treatment (MBT) followed by thermal treatment.
A council spokesman said: “We should like to thank all the companies for their participation in what was a fair and robust evaluation, carried out painstakingly over a number of months.”
Speaking to letsrecycle.com , Cheshire county council's strategic manager for contract procurement, John Thistlewood, explained: “We have gone through the stage one process in the competitive dialogue process. The shortlisted companies are now going into a more detailed stage, eventually getting to preferred bidder in 2009.”
At present, all residual waste in Cheshire is sent to three landfill sites in the county under a 4 year and 2 month-long contract with Waste Recycling Group, which kicked off in February 2008.
However, in the long term, the council is mindful of EU and UK Government waste policies which require the introduction of more sustainable management practises to reduce waste, increase recycling and reduce landfill needs.
Cheshire has been awarded with £40 million in government PFI credits in order to develop new waste treatment infrastructure (see letsrecycle.com story) .
In is anticipated the procurement for waste facilities will go ahead despite plans to split Cheshire into an East and West unitary authority (see letsrecycle.com story).
Mr Thistlewood explained: “We will be two unitaries in Cheshire from April 1 2009 and there are elections in May this year to elect shadow authorities. This procurement is a very important project for us in Cheshire and we will consult with the shadow authorities. I think it will still go ahead by it will involve consultation.”
It is expected the contract will be awarded in early 2009.
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