Neil Grundon, Chairman of Grundon Waste Management, says allowing politicians to dictate waste technology is “tantamount to disaster”.
Sometimes I think you couldn’t make it up. I read the other day about a school which was “spending thousands of pounds a year to keep its playing field grass below 2.5cm” because of the demands of a “rigid” Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract.
We all know that PFI was meant to be the saviour of major infrastructure projects – including waste management developments – where the private sector takes on the risk of financing, building and operating facilities and the public sector pays it back over (a long) time.
Indeed, according to Gov.UK’s PFI Centre of Excellence website, PFIs have delivered around £56 billion of private sector capital investment in over 700 UK infrastructure projects, including new schools, hospitals, housing and prisons.
This is not a time to take risks with taxpayers’ money, and councils shouldn’t be tempted into investing in their own facilities when perfectly good ones already exist.
So what could possibly go wrong? The answer has been quite a lot – there’s a pretty long list of waste management facilities which promised a great deal and failed to deliver.
Back in 2009, a 25-year recycling and waste management PFI contract worth billions of pounds was signed by the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA) and heralded as the “largest ever combined waste and energy project”. Eight years later, after delays, legal disputes and escalating costs plagued the project, there was a “mutually agreed” decision to terminate the contract.
Another high-profile example must be the Tovi Eco Park in Basildon, Essex, which was supposed to process 420,000 tonnes of black waste from households as part of an £800m contract between the operator and Essex County Council (ECC).
After a lengthy dispute that went all the way to the High Court (at some considerable cost), ECC was allowed to terminate the 28-year contract. Demolition of the facility is ongoing and expected to finish this summer.
The council’s cabinet member for the environment, waste reduction and recycling has since been quoted as saying ECC is “exploring new ways to manage our waste in future and are aiming for the most sustainable options”.
Those new ways are all very well – at Grundon, we’re big fans of innovation and we’re always working hard to deliver even greater efficiencies and carbon savings – but sometimes the solution is right in front of you.
Energy from Waste (EfW) facilities are a case in point, they really do what it says on the tin. Try comparing their success story with some of the other options councils have chosen over the past few years, gasification plants being one such example.
This is not a time to take risks with taxpayers’ money, and councils shouldn’t be tempted into investing in their own facilities when perfectly good ones already exist.
If only politicians would talk to experts such as ourselves, they would find themselves welcomed with open arms.
There’s a reason why we’re a successful waste management business and that’s because we’re good at what we do. We know what works, we know what it’s going to cost – more important than ever for taxpayers – and we know how to manage it.
Take, for instance, our Mole Valley Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) in Surrey, a joint venture with the local authority and ourselves.
If only politicians would talk to experts such as ourselves, they would find themselves welcomed with open arms.
Next year marks 20 years since we opened the facility. We shared the land and we shared the risk, and I can happily say that I don’t think there’s been a dispute in all that time – it goes to show what can be achieved when it’s a true partnership and people actually talk to each other.
In contrast, the schemes which haven’t worked are often the ones where politicians have tried to dictate waste technology and that has to be tantamount to disaster.
Too many taxpayers have been paying high prices for failed decision-making processes in the past and they deserve better. Green policies are all very well but, as Labour showed only too well by cutting its green prosperity plan almost in half, they come at a high price.
As costs continue to rise across all services, hard decisions will have to be made and council tax rises will be inevitable. That’s why it’s more important than ever to be transparent and to demand greater accountability – and you can only get that if you turn to those already in the market.
I say to politicians, don’t sit in your ivory towers, leave the Zoom meetings behind and come and see how waste management really works.
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