Warwickshire debates PFI partnership withdrawal

The county council – which is partnered with Coventry city and Solihull metropolitan borough councils on the project – is scheduled to consider a motion proposed by Liberal Democrat councillor John Whitehouse which calls for a halt to the procurement process for the project until an alternative to the energy-from-waste facility detailed in its Outline Business Case is found.

The consortium used a 305,000 tonne-a-year capacity energy-from-waste facility as its reference technology in order to secure £129.1million in PFI funding in June 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story), with the intention of using the new facility to replace an existing 240,000 tonne-a-year capacity energy-from-waste plant in Coventry from 2016.

Cllr Whitehouse has called for the council to seek an agreement with its partners to halt the current procurement process for at least a year in order to develop an alternative approach to dealing with their future residual waste disposal needs.

Outlining his proposal, Cllr Whitehouse said: “If agreement to this course cannot be reached across all three authorities, the council should withdraw from Project Transform, as provided for under the Joint Working Agreement between the partners, and pursue an alternative medium or long term strategy for residual waste disposal.”

Arisings

The proposal comes in the wake of the three council consortium revealing last month that it had reduced its projections for future residual waste arisings in the region compared to the figures used in its PFI bid (see letsrecycle.com story).

And, while the county council explained in February it was still not committed to the development of an energy-from-waste facility, the partnership named an eight-bidder shortlist for the waste treatment deal in January 2010 which was dominated by firms with experience or specialism in the technology (see letsrecycle.com story).

Delivery of Project Transform has proven a controversial issue locally, with opposition groups attacking the council in May 2009 over the use of supposedly out dated information on waste arisings to formulate the basis for the waste project (see letsrecycle.com story).

Speaking ahead of tomorrow's debate, Jane Green of Coventry Friends of the Earth and local campaign group the Coalition for Recycling and Against the Coventry Incinerator (CRACIN), said:”This is an important debate and we are grateful for the opportunity to hear the full council debate this important issue.

“The burning of resources is highly controversial as is the funding through the much criticised PFI process. It is important that these issues are aired in public and we would encourage similar debates in Coventry and Solihull.”