SITA's subsidiary, Surrey Waste Management (SWM), made the decision in light of the rejection and subsequent withdrawal of a similar planning application made by Waste Recycling Group and its partners in Hull (see letsrecycle.com story).
SWM asked Surrey county council to review its waste management contract for Best Practicable Environmental Option in light of the decision made at Hull. The company has a 25 year contract with the county that began in 1999 and expires in 2024.
John Scanlon, operations director at SWM, said: “Having reviewed the recent precedents set by the Hull decision it is clear that certain parallels may apply to the Capel application.”
He added: “SWM has therefore decided that it is in the best interests of the company and SCC to withdraw the current planning application. This will allow sufficient time for the county council to undertake the necessary review of its waste management needs as highlighted in the Hull case.”
Waste Recycling Group, Hull and East Riding councils had their application for a 165,000 tonne capacity, 30 million incinerator rejected after a local opposition group put pressure on councillors. A similar pressure group has been set up in Surrey and has the backing of Greenpeace.
Surrey's total household waste stream is approximately 550,000 tonnes each year and in 2000-01 over 446,000 tonnes of this was landfilled in the Home Counties. The planned energy-from-waste plant at Capel would have handled 110,000 tonnes of waste per year.
Re-submit
Mr Scanlon said that SWM will pursue the use of an energy-from-waste plant at the Capel site to deal with the increasing amounts of waste being produced by the county.
He explained: “Clearly the residents of Surrey need additional waste management facilities to deal with their waste given the fact that landfill capacity is reducing so rapidly. In any event future legislation will prevent us from disposing of waste to landfill at the current levels and whilst we all want to increase the level of recycling undertaken that cannot be the answer in isolation.”
SITA informed the council that: “Surrey Waste Management proposes to re-submit the application as soon as practicably possible, once the planning issues consequent to the Hull EfW planning appeal decision have been addressed in a new application.”
SWM originally gained planning permission for the Capel plant but was blocked following a judicial review. The company had also planned to build another energy-from-waste plant in Redhill but was refused planning permission.
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