Norfolk county councillors have opted to scrap a controversial 500 million energy-from-waste (EfW) contract with consortium Cory Wheelabrator after a day of protracted discussions (April 7).
The cabinet voted unanimously to terminate the contract this afternoon following an earlier full council meeting, which saw councillors vote 48-30 in favour of scrapping the deal with one abstention.
The councils decision to end the 25-year contract, originally signed in February 2012, means that the council now faces paying up to 30 million in compensation to the consortium, which said it was extremely disappointed with the outcome of todays meetings.
According to the council, the cost of terminating the contract is estimated to be 30.26m, comprising capped compensation to Cory Wheelabrator of 20.3m, contractor public inquiry costs of 1.6m and exchange rate and interest rate related costs of 8.36m.
As recommended in a report to the council published last week (see letsrecycle.com story), the decision means the end of plans for the Willows EfW plant, which would have treated 268,000 tonnes per year of household waste from Norfolk but had met with fierce opposition over the cost of the project.
The news comes while a final planning decision for the EfW facility is still awaited from communities secretary Eric Pickles, who called in the project for a public inquiry last year.
Defra also pulled 169 million funding for the project in October 2013 (see letsrecycle.com story), and councillors were concerned that this and the continued delay on a decision from Mr Pickles was causing the projects value for money to drop with rising costs and a shortened contract payback period.
The contract had originally been estimated to save taxpayers more than 250 million over its 25-year period, but the report to council today said this saving would have completely flat-lined by June 2014.
‘The Willows project looks set to become yet another example of this delay and uncertainty. The delay to that planning decision has resulted in considerable costs to all parties at a time when public funds are already stretched.’
Cory Wheelabrator
In addition, Cory Wheelabrator had been seeking an increase in the 30 million capped costs of terminating the contract, another factor in the councils decision today.
Cory Wheelabrator
Cory Wheelabrator a consortium of Cory Environmental and Wheelabrator criticised the delays in the decision over the project from Mr Pickles for contributing to its demise.
A spokesperson for the consortium said: We are extremely disappointed by the decisions today, particularly as many years of hard work have gone into this project by the consortium and Norfolk county council. We believed that the Public Inquiry would have provided a fair hearing for all parties and that a decision would be based on pure planning grounds.
We, and the industry, have also made it clear to government that planning delays to major infrastructure projects are costly and can jeopardise future investment. The Willows project looks set to become yet another example of this delay and uncertainty. The delay to that planning decision has resulted in considerable costs to all parties at a time when public funds are already stretched.
The fact still remains that there is no firm solution for the long-term management of Norfolks waste, despite considerable time and expense being devoted to a solution that was viable, deliverable and would have created hundreds of jobs.
Alternatives
Following the reports recommendation to scrap the contract last week, Suffolk council said it was open to discussion with Norfolk over sharing some excess capacity to treat household waste at its Great Blakenham EfW, currently set to open in December 2014 (see letsrecycle.com story).
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Meanwhile, a report by consultancy Eunomia late last year suggested that exporting Norfolks residual waste as a refuse derived fuel (RDF) or solid recovered fuel (SRF) would be cheaper than the Cory Wheelabrator contract (see letsrecycle.com story).
Elsewhere, Kings Lynn and West Norfolk borough council is proposing to build its own waste treatment facility to treat its black bag waste under a 16-year contract with Chester-based Material Works a facility which reportedly received 100 million funding in January 2014 (see letsrecycle.com story).
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