Writing in the latest edition of Resource Management & Recovery magazine this week, Ken Livingstone said too many decisions in managing London’s waste are being taken at a borough-level, with no thought for the city as a whole.
” Nowadays decision making in London is inevitably focused on the interests of the boroughs, not the interests of London as a whole. “
– Ken Livingstone
London has 12 unitary councils and 21 boroughs forming four waste disposal authorities to handle the disposal of their municipal waste.
Mr Livingstone wants to bring these 16 waste disposal authorities into a single body to provide a more strategic level to waste management in the city.
He said: “I have set a target for 80% of municipal waste to be managed in London by 2020. To achieve this level of self-sufficiency, London as a city has to dramatically increase recycling and develop new technology recovery capacity.
Hampered
“But the delivery of a strategic approach to waste management in hampered by London’s existing governance arrangements,” Mr Livingstone warned.
The Mayor said he found it difficult to see how the 16 waste authorities could work at a strategic level. He said: “Nowadays the decision-making in London is inevitably focused on the interests of the borough not the interests of London as a whole.”
Strategic approaches by the old Greater London Council had been effective, Mr Livingstone said, pointing out that within 5 years of the GLC’s creation, a major recovery plant had been established at Edmonton, with rail and river transfer stations also developed to handle London’s waste.
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Risk
Mr Livingstone also referred to the benefits of a single waste authority in absorbing “much of the risk” of working with new waste treatment technologies.
The Mayor also stressed: “Such an authority could use its greater financial resources to gain maximum value from contracts and greater flexibility in the way it manages waste.”
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