The council terminated the deal last week due to Material Works’ failure to demonstrate sufficient progress on the waste project, but councillor Brian Long, who is also portfolio holder for the environment, denied that signing the agreement two years ago had been a “waste of time”.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com this week (March 23), the Conservative party councillor also said that the deal “wasn’t a political ploy” to dent Norfolk county council’s doomed black bag waste deal with Cory Wheelabrator, which West Norfolk council had opposed.
But councillor Long – who is also a member of the county council – suggested that the borough council would now seek to go into partnership with other authorities in Norfolk to come up with a long term black bag waste solution, as the failure of the Cory Wheelabrator deal meant the county council was also “looking at technology that could be recycling rather than landfill”.
Contract
Councillor Long was instrumental in the 16-year deal struck with Material Works in December 2012, which would have seen an “innovative” facility built in King’s Lynn with the capacity to recycle up to 70,000 tonnes of residual waste per year into a plasticised wood replacement product.
35,000 tonnes of this material was set to come from West Norfolk households, as the council had sought an alternative means for dealing with the borough’s waste due to its opposition to Norfolk county council’s then-deal with Cory Wheelabrator to build a large scale energy-from-waste incinerator to process the entire county’s household waste.
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However, King’s Lynn and West Norfolk council said it had “no choice” but to terminate the deal last week (March 20) as Material Works had yet to secure planning permission, site acquisition, environmental permits and the construction of a demonstrator plant since the deal was struck more than two years ago (see letsrecycle.com story).
The council said the nature of the contract had ensured that it was “not exposed to any financial risk” and that cancelling the deal had not cost it any money.
Councillor Long reiterated this point to letsrecycle.com, contrasting it with the circa £30 million cost faced by Norfolk county council from terminating the Cory Wheelabrator deal last year: “My scheme is effectively being cancelled at no cost to the tax payer – that is essentially the difference.”
He said he still believed the technology proposed by Material Works would work, but that he found it “very frustrating” that so little progress had been made due to issues securing funding.
The councillor said: “It is a great shame because I see it as the future of how residual waste is treated but it will only work if there are the investors there.
“We had to look at technology where the end result was recycling. I saw the small scale demonstrator plant work well over two years ago and I don’t doubt that there is something in what they are doing that is feasible and useable by the waste sector. I have seen it in my own eyes so I have no problem in that respect.”
Commenting on the contract, councillor Long added: “I don’t think it was a waste of time, I think it was a worthwhile exercise and I am sure that Material Works and the way that it operates has improved its viability for the future. They have had more time to do research and so on – that can only be of benefit.
Future
Councillor Long would not be drawn on specific plans for dealing with the borough’s black bag waste in future, but said that any solution would have to be acceptable to the public.
He said: “Anything going forward we wouldn’t be doing on our own. It would be with districts and the county council, or through the Norfolk Waste Partnership, and we will look at schemes that can be developed on a broader scale.
“At this point in time it is too early to say what sort of technology that is likely to be, but progress is being made.”
He added: “Now everybody will be working towards a common goal it should be much easier.”
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