The announcement is expected to come before Parliament finishes for the summer recess on Friday afternoon and will come in the form of a “competition” for the funding. Interest is expected from across the papermaking industry, including newsprint, tissue and packaging.
On the newsprint side, the competition will signal the start of a battle for a new paper machine between Scotland and Kent. Aylesford Newsprint is a strong contender for a new newsprint machine but a bid from Scotland is also being prepared and other contenders have not been ruled out.
The competition will be administered by WRAP – the Waste and Resources Action Programme – which has paper as one of the four materials it is targeting for increased recycling.
In its business plan published last month, WRAP aims to support investment by April 2004 in new manufacturing capacity to deliver a 500,000 tonnes a year increase in newspaper recycling. But, WRAP is thought not to mind whether the newspapers go into making newsprint or into making packaging or tissue products.
The announcement will bring to an end a long period of silence since last December when Environment Minister Michael Meacher responded to a question about plans for a new machine at Aylesford, saying an announcement would be made “in the near future”.
Aylesford Newsprint has said that it is very keen to build a new machine and its current plant has been built for planned expansion.
The Scottish proposal is being co-ordinated by John Connor of Stirling Fibre who in the past was a supporter of plans for a newsprint machine at Gartcosh. Now, the proposal is being drawn up, said Mr Connor, with the support of Scottish Enterprise, Locate in Scotland and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
Mr Connor said: “We have put a together a strong team in Scotland to develop a newsprint machine. There are a number of sites available. Scotland is a logical place to have a machine, there is no manufacturing capacity for mechanical de-inking.”
Publishing
The idea of a Scottish newsprint mill was discounted by one industry expert who said that the major concentration of newspaper publishing in the south east of England is far more substantial than that to be found in Scotland. However, others in the industry point to the fact that capacity is growing fast on the continent for recycled newsprint machines and that with three plants planned or under construction, a new newsprint machine in the UK may come too late to compete.
Peter McGuinness, chairman of the British Recovered Paper Association, said that he welcomed the idea of the competition. “Any incentive that can be given to UK industry that will introduce further manufacturing has to be a benefit. It will be interesting to see how the government will approach investment in other sectors such as printings and writings, packaging and tissues.”
It is thought that all the paper manufacturers in the UK will be looking at the possibility of using the WRAP funds which could be supported by other development monies.
Other projects on the drawing board include a packaging plant in the North East proposed by the Tees Valley Development Corporation which has attracted interest from St Regis.
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