LGA calls for funds to implement waste strategy

Councillor Paul Bettison, chairman of the Local Government Association's environment board and leader of Bracknell Forest council, said today that if the government wants more investment in infrastructure like anaerobic digestion, it will have to dig into its own pockets, rather than squeezing councils even further.

Local authorities are suffering additional landfill taxes, which the chancellor said was not intended as a revenue-generation exercise. If that's true, can we have some of that money back?

 
Cllr Paul Bettison, LGA

And, also speaking today at a CIWM seminar on the new waste strategy, in one of his last speeches before the forthcoming change of government, minister Ben Bradshaw accepted that waste management was “one of the areas where spending has to be increased”.

The seminar discussed the new English waste strategy issued by Defra last month, which suggested the need for a range of measures to reduce waste, boost recycling and tackle climate change. These included more separate collection of food waste to boost composting and anaerobic digestion (AD) (see letsrecycle.com story).

LGA

While the strategy has been generally welcomed by local authorities, the LGA has led concerns that councils do not have the resources to carry out its ambitions.

Cllr Bettison said: “We need additional funding. If you look at the costs that local authorities have been facing, they have been rising by 10% per annum while council tax is capped at 5%.

“Local authorities have been absorbing those additional costs and this is stopping us from doing other things because we have no choice but to deal with waste,” he added.

The Bracknell councillor explained that councils were facing the “financial double whammy” of rising Landfill Tax and extra recycling costs. He warned that recycling “doesn't save money” after expenditure such as vehicles and finding end-markets was factored in, and that many local authorities “are not well placed to make the investment” required for facilities outlined in the strategy.

Cllr Bettison explained: “Local authorities are suffering additional landfill taxes, which the chancellor said was not intended as a revenue-generation exercise. If that's true, can we have some of that money back to invest in anaerobic digestion?”

Bradshaw

Local environment minister Ben Bradshaw told delegates that while Defra could not “provide money for local authorities ad infinitum”, the Department recognised there was a need to spend more on UK waste management.

He said: “What we are spending is not sustainable and there is a recognition across government that it's one of the areas where spending has to be increased.”

Mr Bradshaw also explained to the audience that one of the reasons anaerobic digestion had featured so prominently in the waste strategy “lay behind the media hysteria when it comes to alternate weekly collections”. He said it was hoped that anaerobic digestion would encourage more local authorities to introduce weekly food waste collections.

Combined heat and power (CHP) facilities were also discussed in the document and Mr Bradshaw said this was down to “public acceptability”, because it could ultimately help people reduce heating bills.

But, the minister whose own constituency of Exeter is the location for a proposed incinerator, stressed that Defra did not favour any particular energy-from-waste technology over another.