The council said that the nature of the contract has “ensured that the borough council was not exposed to any financial risk while the contract remained subject to conditions”.
Material Works said it was “disaapointed” by the decision.
The deal was conditional on Material Works securing planning permission for an “innovative” facility with the capacity to recycle up to 70,000 tonnes of waste per year into a plasticised wood replacement product. 35,000 tonnes of this material was set to come from West Norfolk households.
But progress on the contract, first signed in December 2012, has been slow and in November 2014 the company was given a three month extension to the deal by the council with the potential for up to three further three-month extensions, subject to the firm being able to “demonstrate progress against the conditions” (see letsrecycle.com story).
And, this afternoon, the council announced that it had “no choice” but to terminate the contract as Material Works had “failed to convince” the authority that “any tangible progress has been made”.
Disappointing
Roy Harding, chief executive of the borough council, said: “It is disappointing that we have had to take this step. We have given the company not only the timescales set out within the original conditional contract, but have also previously extended the contract for a further three months to enable them to make progress against the conditions set out in the terms of the contract.
“The latest correspondence from them has failed to convince us that any tangible progress has been made and the conditions have yet to be met. We really have no choice but to let the contract terminate.”
According to the council, conditions of the original contract includes the provision of a demonstrator plant for the proposed waste treatment facility in King’s Lynn, but this has not been commissioned and “therefore no outputs have been verified”.
In addition, the council said that the necessary environmental permits have not been obtained and the planning permission and the site acquisition are still outstanding.
Ray Harding added: “It is no secret that we had high hopes for this technology, which had the potential to really change the way Norfolk deals with its waste and would have put West Norfolk at the forefront of recycling in this country. We believe that the ideas surrounding the technology the company has developed are sound. But we have to be realistic – with so little progress made since December 2012, we can only conclude that facility will not be delivered within a reasonable timescale.
“We wish the company the best of luck with getting this technology up and running. In the meantime, we will focus our attention on working with our partners within the Norfolk Waste Partnership to identify the most appropriate ways to deal with the county’s waste.”
Material Works
Responding to news of the contract termination today, a spokesman for Material Works said: “Obviously we are disappointed, but we have no further comments at this stage while we investigate further options that might be open to us.”
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