See below for more information from the County Council on the Calvert Decision. It is good news that our County Councillor, John Cartwright, has called in the decision for reconsideration by the Council's Resources Committee.
WRG to deal with Buckinghamshire's waste
Buckinghamshire County Council's (BCC) Cabinet today (Monday 29 November 2010) chose to award preferred bidder status* to Waste Recycling Group (WRG) for the 30 year contract to build an Energy from Waste facility (also known as an incinerator) to treat the county's household waste.
The company proposes to build and operate an Energy from Waste facility at Greatmoor, near Calvert, north Buckinghamshire, which will provide a cheaper and greener solution to disposing of residual household waste - which cannot be recycled or composted - than landfill.
Landfilling waste is environmentally damaging as much of the waste rots to produce methane, which is more than 20 times more harmful than carbon dioxide. Landfilling waste is also extremely costly with the Government imposing hefty landfill fines on councils to encourage them to find alternative ways to manage waste. Current calculations show that by switching to Energy from Waste, Buckinghamshire would save over £100 million in landfill costs, over the life of the WRG contract.
Covanta Energy, which was also bidding to provide Buckinghamshire's Energy from Waste service, with its site at Rookery South Pit near Stewartby, Bedfordshire has not been selected.
In September last year the Council agreed to appoint Covanta Energy as its preferred bidder. Whilst clarifying the terms of their appointment, the company made the Council aware of a commercial matter, which impacted on aspects of its bid. As this might have affected the evaluation of the final bids the Council was legally required to re-open discussions with both Covanta Energy and WRG.
Cabinet Member for Planning and Environment, Councillor Martin Tett, said: "Since March of this year, the project team have been working very hard with both bidders to ensure the proposals they put forward were going to provide the best solution for the county. In September we received the final bids, which have been evaluated by our technical, legal and financial experts and project team against pre-agreed criteria.
"This is a high-profile project of great importance to residents and the county. The announcement today may come of some surprise. However I would like to reassure residents that I have personally spent a considerable amount of time understanding both the process and the key elements of the recommendation by the professional experts on the Project Board to ensure this is the right solution for Buckinghamshire and our council tax payers. Both bidders offered very good solutions for Buckinghamshire and were of a high standard making the decision difficult. I would like to thank Covanta Energy for their hard work in putting their bid together."
"I am confident that the Energy from Waste solution proposed by WRG is in the best interest of our council tax payers. Value for money was an important consideration throughout. We need efficiency, effectiveness and economy from the winning bidder. But, we also need to consider another 'E' - environment. We must ensure that we reach our high recycling target of 60% by 2025 and that the residual waste left is treated efficiently. Waste is a renewable resource that when treated properly can produce significant levels of energy and reduce the country's reliance on dirty, fossil-fuelled power.
"We have conscientiously researched and objectively evaluated the technical options available for treating our leftover waste. Energy from Waste is a modern, highly regulated technology which is well proven in the UK and elsewhere in Europe and works well with high recycling targets, as demonstrated by countries like Denmark."
WRG's proposed facility will convert some 300,000 tonnes of waste a year into 22MW of electricity to send to the national grid. They are also considering how the heat generated from the plant maybe used.
Further information about WRG's proposals is available on their website at:
http://wrg.co.uk/page.php?article=831&name=Calvert+Home+Page&preview=true
Claydon House
Claydon House Gardens
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Steeple Claydon spire seen through oak trees
Map of Claydon Station
Meeting our local PCSO
Supporting our local businesses
With anti HS2 campaigners in Calvert
1 comment:
This decision is a complete traversty for Buckinghamshire.
The £200+million capital cost is roughly two and a half times the costs of building a programme to take the residual waste from BCC and convert it to the renewable fuel ethanol as proposed in Yorkshire in the Maltings Organic Treatment Facility at South Milford in the £70 million programme for a larger quantity. It is even more galling when you consider that to build a similar plant in Holland (not noted for being cheap-scale) for 230,000 tonnes per year will cost a smidgen over €65 million, and that doesn't even have a Gate Fee for treatment. Now wehear that the same team has finally agreed a proposition in a series of Med.n Countries to treat the typical residual wastes (as compared to this size of project at Calvert) with capacities of 270,000, 350,000 and 450,000 tonnes per year for Capital costs of €105 Million, €150 million and €185 million respectively with treatment fees that are targeted to be €35 tonne for the first 5 years and then zero costs afterwards because the sale of the renewable fuels and electricity produced from these plants will have paid off all the debts in just 5 years.
So why does the Aylesbury Vale and Buckinghamshire CC still insist on this highly polluting system when other countries like Pakistan Tanzania China Vietnam USA Cuba Holland and now Russia are going away from it to the much more beneficial route of making the renewable fuel ethanol?
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