SITA forced to withdraw leaflet on proposed EfW plant

The Advertising Standards Agency – the regulator for advertising and marketing -upheld five of 15 complaints about the leaflet in early July, claiming that it “must not appear again in its current form.”

The ASA was alerted by local man Rod Toms, who is part of a campaign against the incinerator. Mr Toms described the decision as, “not a great victory, but a marker at least.”

SITA UK said that leaflet was distributed during a consultation event in January 2008, prior to the submission of a planning application.

However, a statement regarding the number of lorries visiting the site was found to have breached the code on truthfulness, while photomontages, statements on jobs created, sustainability claims and the claim “The Health Protection Agency says that modern incinerators are safe” breached codes on both truthfulness and substantiation.

CERC, a £100 million, 240,000 tonne-a-year capacity energy-from-waste facility, was denied planning permission in March (see letsrecycle.com story), and had been the subject of queries from local opposition groups over its potential emissions and environmental impact.

The facility was to form the centerpiece of SITA UK's 30 year PFI-funded waste treatment contract with Cornwall county council that was signed in October 2006 (see letsrecycle.com story) and was envisaged to be up-and-running at a site at Rostowrack farm near St. Dennis, in the centre of the county, in 2012.

Review

Commenting on the ruling, David Buckle from SITA UK said that the firm never intended to mislead and would be seeking a review of the decision.

He said: “We are disappointed by the ASA's ruling to uphold five of the points because we feel we provided sufficient justification to the ASA that we never intended to mislead members of the public in any way.

“The leaflet provided a snapshot of a complex planning application as it was at the time, and which was subject to change and was deliberately written in plain English. We are therefore asking for an independent review of the decision”.

“It is important to make clear that the ruling in no way related to the content of our planning application.”

He added: “In future, before we release any information that could be deemed as advertising material, we will also introduce a procedure to first ensure that it complies with the ASA's guidelines.”

The five upheld charges were:

1) The photomontage of the CERC within the leaflet gave a misleading impression of how thee finished development would look against the surrounding landscape. While ASA accepted that the CERC image was in proportion with the landscape, there was an erroed in where it was positioned in a computer-generated image.

2) The claim “we estimate that around 250 jobs will be created during the peak construction phase, and a further 48 full-time jobs once the centre is open” was misleading. ASA said that SITA should have made it clear that the peak period would last for a month.

3) The claim “approximately 90 lorries (including some service deliveries) will visit the site every week day between 7am-6pm” was misleading. ASA said that SITA should have made it clear that this number was subject to change, as it increased between the time of the pre-application consultation and the submission of the planning application.

4) The claim “the Health Protection Agency says that modern incinerators are safe” could not be substantiated. Although the HPA said that emissions from modern incinerators had little affect, ASA concluded that to claim modern incinerators were safe was too absolute, had not be substantiated and could mislead.

5) The description of the project as “sustainable” in the claim “a sustainable solution for the management of Cornwall's waste” was misleading. ASA said that while it acknowledged that the production of energy from waste could provide substantial environmental benefits, SITA had not explained the basis for its claim and could therefore mislead consumers.