Gloucestershire waste decision called in for scrutiny

In December, Gloucestershire county council chose Spanish company Urbaser and its partner civil engineers Balfour Beatty as the preferred bidder for its 500 million, 25-year contract ahead of Complete Circle, a consortium of Shanks, John Laing and Keppel Seghers (see letsrecycle.com story).

However, a meeting of the county councils overview and scrutiny committee is set to consider on Friday (Janaury 27) whether certain points were overlooked during the decision-making process.

One concern is that the energy-from-waste plant which Urbaser Balfour Beatty is planning will have a maximum capacity of 190,000 tonnes per year, 10,000 tonnes more than Complete Circles proposed plant and thus over-providing for the amount of waste that Gloucestershire needs to treat. Critics within the council fear this could lead to waste being imported to the plant from outside the county.

And, it has been suggested that the council did not adequately assess alternative waste treatment technologies when reaching its decision. It is also suggested that the council put more emphasis on financial rather than environmental considerations and did not give sufficient weighting to the financial risks associated with delays and a possible Judicial Review.

Another concern is that a recent event at Javelin Park was entitled Zero waste to landfill, despite the fact that by-products from the incineration process will be sent to landfill.

Rebuttal

However, Gloucestershire county councils cabinet project champion for waste, councillor Stan Waddington, rejected all these claims in a detailed rebuttal.

On the issue of creating too much EfW capacity, Cllr Waddington said there was plenty of waste to be treated within Gloucestershire, if commercial waste arisings were taken into consideration.

He said: The forecast of Gloucestershires residual municipal and commercial waste set out in the Waste Core Strategy is a minimum of 293,000 tonnes which is well in excess of the capacity of the facility.

I can also perhaps give further assurance to the concern of importing waste by emphasising again that the selected preferred bidder has based their business plan solely on waste arising in Gloucestershire.

With regard to waste treatment technology, Cllr Waddington explained that at the beginning of the procurement process the council had looked at a range of technologies and shortlisted five including MBT, autoclave and advanced thermal treatment- but had been technology neutral as to which of these the prospective bidders went for.

And, on the subject of risk, he said that the ultimate financial risk was that of the residual waste project being delayed and the council having to pay 150 million in extra landfill charges. The potential costs of a planning appeal, he added, had been taken into consideration.

He said: We cannot afford not to act. Gloucestershire has already had a previous attempt at procuring a residual waste treatment facility and we cannot afford either environmentally or financially to delay any further.

Lastly, Cllr Waddington said that the council was working towards zero waste to landfill which was why it was used in literature promoting the new waste project, and it was language which had been used by the government.

Cllr Waddington summarised his arguments by saying that he did not believe that the call in established any reason to justify an allegation of unlawfulness or procedural impropriety.

Meeting

At the meeting on Friday, the scrutiny committee will decide whether they agree with one or more of the grounds for call-in set out in the call-in notice.

If the committee does agree, they can support the decision, criticise it but make no adverse view on the decision itself, propose modifications or, in exceptional circumstances, arrange for the full Council to review or scrutinise the decision and decide whether to recommend that it be reconsidered.