SITA UK disappointed by Localism Bill focus

 

We are disappointed that the Bill relies almost wholly on the Community Infrastructure Levy to share benefits offered by new developments

 
David Palmer-Jones, SITA UK 

The waste management company said yesterday (December 15) it was disappointed that the proposals, which were unveiled by communities secretary Eric Pickles on Monday (see letsrecycle.com story), did not address the issue of residents being able to benefit from the outputs and operation of waste plants.

Instead, it claimed the plans relied “almost totally” on the Community Infrastructure Levy to share the benefits from new developments with the communities hosting them.

The levy is a charge developers must pay to councils when bringing forward new projects, and under plans in the Bill, local authorities will have more power to actually set the charging structure and to divert funds to the neighbourhoods affected by a development.

Lobbying

SITA UK had lobbied for the Bill to include the provision for councils to consider a range of direct and indirect community buy-in options for infrastructure developments – such as waste management facilities – in order to make them more accepted by the local populace (see letsrecycle.com story). This might include a share in ownership or cheaper electricty.

And, the French-owned firm, which had handed Mr Pickles a draft of a clause outlining how community buy-in could work at the Conservative Party conference in October (see letsrecycle.com story) , stated that “more concrete provisions” than those enshrined in the Localism Bill would be required.

David Palmer-Jones, chief executive of SITA UK, said: “We are disappointed that the Bill relies almost wholly on the Community Infrastructure Levy to share benefits offered by new developments with the host community, and that the local authority has the discretion to set these charges.

“SITA UK has submitted to the Secretary of State [Eric Pickles] a proposal which gave local authorities the power to consider a more wide-ranging set of both direct and indirect community benefits, more attuned to the operation and outputs of waste management facilities. This has not been taken up in the Bill.”

SITA UK, and Mr Palmer-Jones, had previously warned that planning hold-ups to developments such as energy-from-waste incinerators was proving to be a considerable issue for the waste management and recycling sector (see letsrecycle.com story).

Welcome

Despite lamenting the focus of the community buy-in elements, SITA welcomed the addition of a pre-application community consultation for “significant projects”, which Mr Palmer-Jones said would be a “meaningful exercise, ensuring that is not merely a ‘box-ticking' exercise”.

And, the company also welcomed the retention of the fast-track planning system for ‘National Significant Infrastructure Projects', despite it not lowering the threshold for considered projects lowered to enable ‘regional-sized' waste management facilities to be processed.

SITA UK has previously stressed the need to address planning concerns due to the need for between £15 billion and £20 billion of waste infrastructure to be developed in the UK to meet the treatment capacity needed for the 50 million tonnes of municipal waste currently being landfilled.