SWERF 2

A bidder has been chosen for a proposed waste treatment plant in Sinfin. Derby City Council and Derbyshire County Council said a joint venture between United Utilities and Interserve is the preferred bidder. A final decision will be made by the two councils' cabinets and the bidder will then apply for planning permission to build the plant, which would treat up to one-third of the county's waste. Sixteen companies were considered in the tendering process with the project including the operation, design and financing of the waste treatment plant. The project also includes the management of the county's recycling centres. Public consultation on the plans will take place early in the new year.

Councillor Mike Carr said, "This is an incredible capital investment in Derby during a time of financial uncertainty that should generate employment for local building suppliers and through the creation of jobs for the operation of the facility." Dorothy Skrytek of Friends of the Earth, who opposes the plant, said residents should be encouraged to recycle and compost instead of sending more waste to the landfill and waste disposal plants. She said the new technology involved drying out the waste and then heating it at a very low temperature, but this could still produce "up to 170,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year". (Source: BBC News, Dec/08)

Derby City Council may end up paying thousands of pounds to fight its own refusal of planning permission for the controversial Sinfin waste treatment site. The situation has arisen because of a contract arrangement with waste company Resource Recovery Solutions. The city council and county council have a multi-million-pound deal with the company to handle their waste for the next 27 years.

That agreement was reached before the city's planning committee refused the application for the £50m plant that the waste company wants to build in Sinfin Lane. RSS is expected to contest the planners' decision but the Derby Telegraph can reveal a clause in the contract between the company and the councils states the authorities have agreed to pay 90% of any potential appeal costs. That clause will come into effect once all funding for the waste plant is in place.

It was in December last year that Derbyshire County Council and Derby City Council agreed the £50m deal with Resource Recovery Solutions. The aim was to find a way of treating the county's waste so the authorities could avoid hefty Government fines for sending rubbish to landfill. A key element was that RRS wanted to build a treatment site in Sinfin, which would deal with 180,000 tonnes of the county's waste each year which was not recycled.

It would smoulder the rubbish to create a gas which could be burned to create electricity. The proposals caused controversy and outrage among environmental campaigners and Sinfin residents worried about the impact on health. In the same month, the city council's planning committee refused permission for the proposed plant in Sinfin Lane. It left RRS with a contract to deal with the county's waste but not the permission to do it in the way it wanted.

For the past two months, the company has been considering its options, whether to resubmit the application, look at other sites or appeal. It has not made a decision but looks likely to appeal and the reasons why are clear, it faces little financial risk in doing so. The city council, along with the county council, signed a contract which said they would cover 90% of the costs RRS would incur if it decided to appeal against the planning decision.

A city council report has recommended it pays the costs because it would be in the "spirit of the contract". If they agree, it will commit council taxpayers to a bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds. The expected appeal cost would be £640,000. The councils would have to pay £576,000. That cost would be split between the two authorities, with the county council paying £396,000 and the city £180,000.

The councils say the contract quirk is nothing unusual and is based on Government guidelines from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Both also say delaying an appeal would prove more costly than allowing it to go ahead and the city sees no contradiction that, on one hand, it is extolling the virtues of the site but, on the other, its planning committee has refused to allow it to be built.

A city spokeswoman said, "RRS's proposal to build a facility in Sinfin offered the best environmentally-friendly, most cost-effective way of dealing with our rubbish which cannot be recycled in the future. In the light of planning permission being refused, the alternatives to providing the facility will cost the taxpayer much, much more, the total cost of supporting RRS's appeal is less than one month's delay costs on the project."

If an appeal did not go ahead and the Sinfin Lane site was ditched, RRS would take waste to recycling centres and landfill up to July 2012, after which the contractor or councils could opt out of the contract. The councils said they would then have to find another company to deal with their waste because they would need to reduce the amount going to landfill to minimise the risk of hefty fines from Government.

A city council spokeswoman said, "The alternatives are continuing to use landfill, which will be fined by Government at an increasing rate year on year, or go back to the market and start the process again to find a solution to handle our rubbish which is likely to take at least four years." County councillor John Allsop, cabinet member for recycling and technology, said he thought it was a "good" contract. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Feb/10)

Derby City Council has agreed to pay thousands of pounds to fight its own planning committee's refusal of permission for the controversial Sinfin waste treatment site. Councillor Mike Carr, cabinet member for direct and internal services, agreed to allow waste company Resource Recovery Solutions to appeal against a decision to refuse consent for a waste treatment site in Sinfin Lane. Derbyshire County Council's cabinet made the same decision in private.

The decision was made after Mr Carr heard arguments from Sinfin ward councillor Baggy Shanker and climate change committee representative Councillor Phil Ingall against the plans. Mr Shanker said he was outraged with the decision and was looking to refer it, and the entire contract agreed with RRS, to the Audit Commission. After the meeting, he said he believed there was a conflict of interest.

Mr Shanker said, "The recommendation to fund this appeal was made by the waste project board last week, a board which Mr Carr acknowledges he sits on. It should have been a decision handed to the leader of the council or someone else." Mr Carr made his decision after hearing advice from officer Andrew Hopkin, who is leading the waste project on behalf of the city council. Mr Hopkin confirmed the contract is conditional, so the councils are not yet obliged to pay the 90% of appeal costs.

He said other options, including ending the contract and retendering, would be costly to the council and added, "There is no legal obligation at this time to fund this appeal but the company would not go ahead with such an undertaking without the support of both councils." Asked why its cabinet meeting had not also been held in public, a County Council spokeswoman said, "The report is exempt from public view under Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 since it contains information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Mar/10)

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