Two officers from each council will check the final details before the contract with Onyx Aurora is signed on March 31, an East Sussex spokeswoman said.
The 25-year Private Finance Initiative deal provides for increased recycling facilities, new waste transfer stations and enclosed composting. The contract sets a minimum target of 33% for recycling.
It also makes controversial provision for an incinerator at Newhaven and a plant using as yet unspecified new technology at Pebsham. A further source of dispute is that the plan will be signed before the waste local plan is adopted.
The two councils said that this was because their landfill capacity was being rapidly exhausted. They said that decisions on major sites were not expected before the inspector reported on the public inquiry into the plan, and that the contract allowed for any changes needed as a result of the plan’s final shape.
Changes
Flexibility in the contract would allow for changes to incorporate new technological solutions if these become available over its 25 year life. Both councils conceded that the contract would be considerably more costly than their present arrangements, but said that unless they acted now costs would mount yet further in future.
Onyx Aurora beat rival Viridor-Tiru to become preferred bidder in September 2002.
Public concern has focussed on the planned incinerator, which is due to open in 2009. Friends of the Earth accused the two councils of acting in haste by trying to pre-empt the conclusions of the public inquiry into the waste local plan.
It also said that the 31 March deadline meant the contract would be signed under old PFI criteria. New criteria that takes effect the following day would require greater emphasis on recycling, the pressure group said.
“Scandalous”
Its local waste campaigner Alison Waters said: “It would be scandalous to sign this deeply unpopular contract before the [local plan] inquiry has been held. The councils should come up with a waste plan the gives massive boost to recycling rather than one which burns vast quantities of our precious resources.”
But the councils said that incinerators were “no more hazardous to health than many other activities associated with modern day living”.
The proposed plant would be large enough only to handle waste from East Sussex and Brighton and Hove and would not rely on importing waste from elsewhere.
Contract terms made recycling more advantageous for Onyx Aurora than incineration, the councils added.
The proposed infrastructure, all of which will require individual planning permissions and Environment Agency licenses, is:
2006
– Materials recycling facility (80,000 tonnes a year capacity) and waste transfer station at Hollingdean.
– Enclosed composting (70,000 tonnes a year capacity) at Hailsham.
– Waste transfer station and new household waste recycling site at Maresfield.
2009
– Incinerator at Newhaven (225,000 tonnes a year capacity) with temporary waste transfer station in the preceding three years.
2012
– Waste transfer station and new household waste recycling site at Pebsham, with new technology if required.
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