The council has spent 35,000 looking for potential sites for the new recycling centre, but David Morrish, Devon's environment cabinet member, said: “Each and every one has been dropped because of huge environmental clean-up costs, planning restrictions, local and district council opposition or a combination of these factors.”
Councillor Morrish wrote in the North Devon Journal to criticise the “overblown macho language” being used by campaigners threatening the county's recycling performance.
However, despite the row and the planning problems, the county council has confirmed that it is looking to push ahead with the project.
A spokesman for the county told letsrecycle.com: “Tenders for the Civic Amenity contracts are due out this week and there will be a 5 week tender period.”
Row
This is the latest in a series of rows to hit recycling in Devon, and brewed up over a recycling centre at Northam Burrows in an area of outstanding natural beauty near Bideford on the North Devon coast. After the Countryside and Rights of Way Act was introduced last year, English Nature said that it intends to return the site to nature.
However, local campaigners – including Parish and District councillors – want to keep the Northam Burrows facility open and refuse to allow a new facility to be built elsewhere in the district. At a meeting in May, the Torridge district council endorsed calls from Northam town council to request a public inquiry over the matter.
But Councillor Morrish said: “It cannot be right in 2002 that there are people who actually think it's okay to have a waste recycling centre in an area of outstanding natural beauty. If we fight it, we will certainly lose and it will cost council taxpayers 40,000 for nothing more than an empty gesture.”
He added: “If there are others who think the risk is worth taking then let them gamble with their own money.”
Instead, the county council believes it is better to find another site for a “modern recycling centre worthy of the name”. Devon is one of the UK's best recycling counties, recycling over 20% of their 385,000 tonnes of household waste, but their waste is growing by 5% every year.
“We need to make serious investments in improving our recycling facilities and making it easier for people to do their bit for their local environment,” Councillor Morrish said.
“We have heard much from some local councillors and the district council about where a new centre cannot go, perhaps the moral burden is now on them to agree where one can go,” he added.
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