Gloucestershire county councils cabinet has agreed to award a 500 million contract to Urbaser Balfour Beatty (UBB) to develop an energy-from-waste incinerator at Javelin Park, just outside Gloucester.
At a meeting yesterday (September 13), councillors gave the go-ahead to officers to sign the deal, with contract award set to be completed by November. Protestors against the incinerator gathered outside the town hall before the meeting but failed toalter the decision.
UBB was named as preferred bidder for the work in December 2011 ahead of Complete Circle, a joint bid by Shanks, John Laing and Keppel Seghers (see letsrecycle.com story). The deal represents the second major contract win for the consortium involving Spanish company Urbaser and its partner civil engineers Balfour Beatty, after it signed a 25-year residual waste deal with the Essex Waste Partnership in June 2012 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Cllr Stan Waddington, Gloucestershire’s cabinet project champion for waste, said: “This decision follows on from Cabinet’s decision in December last year and will now allow us to agree a formal contract. This deal is good value for Gloucestershire taxpayers and will help us deliver a clean, green and affordable solution to Gloucestershire’s rubbish.”
Welcoming the decision, Javier Peiro of Urbaser Balfour Beatty said: “Urbaser Balfour Beatty is pleased that Gloucestershire county council’s cabinet has awarded the contract for a long-term solution to the county’s waste problem. We have worked closely with the council to develop a solution for Gloucestershire and are confident that this contract offers excellent value and benefits for the county.
“The proposed energy from waste facility at Javelin Park will play a vital role in meeting the real and pressing need for an alternative to landfill in Gloucestershire.”
Incinerator
The proposed Javelin Park incinerator would be capable of burning 190,000 tonnes of residual waste a year to generate 14.5 MW per hour, enough to power around 25,000 homes. It would be a combined heat and power plant allowing for future heat take-offs should suitable users be found. Approximately 3,100 tonnes of metal is expected to be recovered per year from the plant for recycling, alongside 32,000 tonnes of incinerator bottom ash. UBB are planning to apply for R1 status for the plant, so that it could be classed as a recovery rather than a disposal operation.
But, the new facility still requires planning permission and an environmental permit before it can be built and operated which the council described as the key risk for the project.
Urbaser Balfour Beatty’s planning application is currently being considered by the planning authority after being submitted in January 2012 and an environmental permit application has been submitted to the Environment Agency by the company.
“People can be reassured that the proposed contract has been designed to be flexible and capable of adapting to what we need”
Councillor Stan Waddington
Cllr Waddington said: “I am pleased that the Inspector’s report on the Waste Core Strategy has been published in advance of this decision. People can be reassured that the proposed contract has been designed to be flexible and capable of adapting to what we need.”
Funding
If planning is secured, the plant is set to be financed by banks after government Public Finance Initiative (PFI) funding was pulled as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review in October 2010.
However, the council is hoping to cover some of the costs of the project with 13 million it has originally set aside to cover the cost of landfill allowances in 2013/14, before the government announced that the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme would be ending after the 2012/13 scheme year. The cabinet report states: the…officer believes that this would be a prudent use of funds by making use of the reserve rather than requiring the contractor to borrow from the banks which would increase the cost of the project.
Subject to planning approval, work on the incinerator is expected to take three years and the plant would become operational in 2016. The contract would commence in early 2016.
Scrutiny
The contract award decision comes after the decision to choose UBB as preferred bidder came under scrutiny earlier this year amid concerns that the proposed incinerator would be over-providing for the amount of residual waste produced in Gloucestershire and may lead to waste being imported in from outside the country (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, the report discussed by the cabinet revealed that UBB would use any remaining capacity to treat commercial and industrial (C&I) waste which would enable some of Gloucestershires C&I waste that is currently disposed of in landfill to be diverted.
Gloucestershire has also insisted that it is still aspiring to recycle 70% of waste by 2030. In 2011/12, 47% of the councils waste was recycled.
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