Waste disposal becomes south London's burning issue

In a meeting room in the heart of Kingston’s Guildhall, an historic event is occurring - something which veterans of the local political scene say has not happened for a decade.

Sitting opposite each other sipping tea and coffee, the leaders of the borough’s two main political parties have put aside their many differences to hold a joint press briefing, rallying together behind plans for the biggest and most expensive building project Kingston has ever known.

In the words of council leader Derek Osbourne it is also the scariest, and with good reason - once the word incinerator begins to be thrown around, even the most politically apathetic of people sit up and take notice.

Coun Osbourne is currently chair of the South London Waste Partnership (SLWP), which was set up two years ago between Kingston, Croydon, Sutton and Merton to solve the future waste needs of the four boroughs.

For the next seven months the Liberal Democrat leader and his counterparts in the other boroughs will be attempting to steer the planning of the vast project through two public consultations, in an effort to make sure residents understand the full picture of what the partnership is trying to achieve.

Concerns have been raging in the borough since we revealed at the beginning of July the council was in talks about the possibility of building an incineration plant on the site of the current recycling centre in Villiers Road by 2014.

But the council is adamant no dark satanic mill will blot out the sun from the heart of the borough, talking instead of low-emission, hi-tech forms of waste treatments alongside modern rubbish burning as the possible future of its waste disposal plans.

In fact the plant, which would most likely be one of several facilities the partnership expects to construct across the boroughs, may not be sited in Kingston at all according to Coun Osbourne - although the council would be happy of the cash boost hosting such a treatment facility could bring to the borough’s coffers.

In this exclusive feature, we explore the proposed deal in an attempt to explain exactly what a new-style incinerator, or other form of waste treatment plant, might mean for local inhabitants.

History

The South London Waste Partnership (SLWP) When the Greater London Council was abolished in 1986, the responsibility for managing the vast quantities of waste produced in the capital fell upon individual boroughs.

While some were told to buddy-up in legally binding partnerships to deal with the rubbish, Kingston went it alone for more than 20 years - before the pressing need to increase recycling rates became too much of a political hot-potato to ignore.

In early 2007, after three years of delicate negotiations, the borough joined with nearby Croydon, Merton and Sutton councils to form the SLWP, allowing them to combine forces to tackle the rubbish from all four boroughs in an organised way.

Now two years old and with three successful contracts for schemes such as waste transportation under its belt, the partnership has turned its gaze towards the long term waste disposal needs of the group.

Since the partnership is organised through mutual agreement and the prize is so large for contractors, the boroughs have enormous flexibility to create a solution using whichever technologies and providers they see fit, rather than being locked into complex legal arrangements like the members of groups such as the North London Waste Authority.

Such a relationship means the boroughs have the perfect opportunity to scour the shop window for the newest, cleanest and safest technologies being developed, and design their own customised solution to best fit the needs of the partnership.

Pressure has been building for the boroughs to find an alternative for the increasingly expensive habit of burying waste in landfill, with new UK and European directives meaning a tonne of rubbish will cost £72 just in tax by 2013 before it is anywhere near a hole in the ground.

With hefty fines a factor for councils burying too much rubbish, the group has turned its attention to a range of hi-tech waste treatments - including incineration - to cut costs and help cope with the extra 220,000 tonnes of waste its residents are estimated to be throwing away within the next five years.

Buoyed by their successful bid for £113m of Private Finance Initiative credits from central Government, the partnership has now begun planning where such a plant could go - and the form the facility could take.

Twin processes

Given the vast sums involved, the understandably complex plan to build the new waste plants involves two separate processes running side by side, which are due to dovetail in 2011.

On the planning side of things, close to 140 sites across the four boroughs were initially identified by the councils as theoretical options for hosting a waste facility - which mostly comprised industrial parks and existing waste sites such as Villiers Road.

These sites were then whittled down to 28 deemed to have “potential”, with the four in Kingston comprising Barwell Business Park and land at the junction of Kingston Road and Jubilee Way, Tolworth, Chessington Industrial Estate and the existing Villiers Road site.

The four boroughs have just launched a grand 12-week public consultation asking residents for their views on a selection of possible sites for a new, unspecified type of waste disposal facility.

This autumn consultation will also give people the chance to shape the future of any plant built near them, by choosing their priorities for the aspects of the construction which would affect them most - such as noise, smell or volume of traffic.

Separate from this procedure, 10 companies have lined up to show their interest in making a bid for the mammoth waste disposal contract, and will attempt to dazzle the SLWP with their solutions for halving the 660,000 tonnes of rubbish the group estimates it will need to send to landfill in five years time if alternatives are not found.

Although the partnership could decide to split the massive contract - which will last between 20 and 35 years - between several companies, the likelihood is a single provider will be picked to handle the waste needs of the four boroughs.

Competition has been fierce so far, with companies due to spend millions in the tendering process before anyone is chosen to provide the service.

Rather than sticking a £1bn behemoth on a single site, Coun Osbourne said it was far more likely the solution would involve a variety of technologies spread across several sites within the partnership.

The group is required by Government to remain “technology neutral”, meaning they are technically unable to rule out nasty facilities such as heavy-polluting incinerators until they have looked at all the options.

But councillors from all four boroughs have repeatedly said no old-style, mass burning incinerator will be chosen for the final plant.

Coun Osbourne said: “While we are not ruling out any technology, what we have said to everyone who is coming to the procurement is there is no real point in walking through the door if that's what you are going to use - and no one’s built a plant like that in years anyway.

“It’s going to be a modern technology, chances are it may not have a huge chimney - it may not have a chimney at all - and will smell less and have no smoke.

“It will probably be in a big barn, no bigger than what’s already at Villiers Road, and it will probably have less impact on the people living nearby than the current facility.”

The SLWP’s mutual nature means the councils have free reign over choosing how to solve the partnership’s future waste problems, including the power to write in to the contract the need for the provider to update their services to coincide with the arrival of new technologies.

Although unable to specify which technologies will be chosen until much later in the process, Coun Osbourne guaranteed the public will be informed of all the details before the contract is signed, which is expected to happen in March 2011.

Technology

If old fashioned, mass burn incineration is out, then what’s in?

An investigation into the partnership’s waste needs conducted in 2008 suggested the following facilities could be required by 2020, although the pace new technologies are appearing means the partnership cannot be sure what will be on the table when it signs the contract in 2011 - let alone in 10 years.

• Gasification plant - an alternative to old-style incineration, gasification takes rubbish and burns it with oxygen and steam to create a gas fuel combining hydrogen and carbon monoxide. In principle, electric power can be generated using a gas turbine, although in practice the current technology uses so much power preparing waste for the process that the energy gain is minimal.

• Anaerobic digestion - Biodegradable rubbish such as food waste is broken down by microorganisms, producing a methane and carbon dioxide gas mixture which can be used for energy generation.

• Materials Recovery Facilities (MRF) - Rubbish is separated through a conveyor belt system using methods including magnetic attraction, optical recognition equipment and human sifters, enabling recyclable materials headed for the landfill to be recovered.

• Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) - Combination of MRF and anaerobic digestion, where recyclable materials are removed before any biodegradable material is converted to gas fuel.

Other options include plasma arc heating, where hazardous and clinical waste is turned into fuel gas by heating it to between 3,000C and 10,000C, and direct incineration, where waste is burned for heat or electricity generation.

One of the most recent incinerators to be built in the UK, at Allington in Kent, burns 1,500 tonnes of waste every day to produce enough electricity to power the whole of Maidstone, but will take 25 years to produce the same amount of pollution as vehicles on the M25 churn out in three days.

The council is also keen on following the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' preference for a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant to be included in the design of any new facility to generate electricity and heat energy from any burned waste.

Coun Osbourne said: “You would expect waste to be treated far more locally, and used to generate power so you get a double hit of environmental sustainability.

“That way, you don’t put stuff in landfill, you treat the waste in a way that is not in itself environmentally degrading, and you can get the energy out for the public good.”

Whatever quantity of rubbish is removed, reused and recycled, however, some will always remain to go to landfill in Beddington, Croydon - the partnership’s job is to make that figure as small as possible.

Politics

Despite the harmony shown by the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in Kingston over the proposed new waste facility, the spirit of co-operation has not been so readily embraced in nearby Croydon.

The Conservative-run council has been assaulted by Labour and Green party members in recent weeks over the possibility of an incinerator being built in the borough, with both parties seeing the situation as an opportunity to sway the electorate their way ahead of next year’s local elections.

Coun Osbourne, who described the situation in Croydon as “particularly sensitive”, said the whole procurement was too big an investment to risk destroying through political point-scoring.

He said: “Having this debate in the run-up to an election makes it all very murky.

“In Kingston, unlike in some of the other boroughs, we’re not having a political row about this.

“None of us can afford singly to dispose of our waste, and if we take that short term view that jeopardises the whole project, the costs to the council tax payer will be huge.”

The SLWP chairman pointed to the fact that the partnership overcame changes of controlling political party in two of the four boroughs during the 2006 elections as proof the mutual arrangement would continue.

He said: “The point at which it could have collapsed was the point the Labour authorities became Conservative in the last election.

“The fact it didn’t gives me confidence it will go on to the end we want it to achieve.”

Coun Osbourne’s Conservative counterpart Councillor Howard Jones, who could be taking responsibility for the project if his party overturns a narrow Lib Dem majority next year, said backing the scheme was a “no-brainer”.

It doesn’t take much of a brain to see why the scheme is so necessary for the councils, with Kingston estimating its already hefty council tax rising by 10 to 15 per cent in the next few years to continue sending waste to landfill.

Coun Osbourne said: “There can’t be a plan B now, in the sense that every borough knows the individual financial consequences of not being part of it.

“If all four boroughs said it was absolutely essential, but it had to be built in one of the other boroughs - well, then we haven’t got a partnership, we've got no investment and we will be in a financial crisis within three years.

“Any borough pulling out would have to compensate the other three, which would cost something like £100m.

“I wouldn’t say we’ve been railroaded, but I like to think we are all on the same train, because we are all going to the same place.”

Assurances

In order to allow readers to properly scrutinise the SLWP’s decisions over the forthcoming years of the project, the Surrey Comet has decided to print the following list of assurances made by Coun Osbourne:
• That the council will not just meet Government targets, but exceed them

• That if the project will be fully regulated by the Environment Agency and Planning Inspectorate before anything goes ahead
• That the most suitable solution will be chosen, not the cheapest
• That none of the authorities will jeopardises public safety with the project
• That if a large facility is built at Villiers Road, there will be fewer vehicle movements
• That outside experts will be brought to advise on the complex project
• That whatever is built will be cleaner than the technology currently available
• That details of the SLWP’s choice of partner(s) will be released to the public before anything is signed
• That the public will be consulted and listened to on which sites are suitable, and how a facility on a nearby site would most affect them.

Public consultation

The current consultation into which sites residents would prefer a waste facility to be built on in the borough runs until October 16, with a public workshop due to be held at Kingston Guildhall on September 16.

Interested groups can also ask the council to give a presentation on the plans before October 2, while the full consultation document is available online at kingston.gov.uk/wasteplan.

Comments can be sent in writing to the Project Manager, South London Waste Plan, The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, High Street, Kingston KT1 1EU, or emailed to southlondonwasteplan@rbk.kingston.gov.uk.

The project manager can also be contacted on 020 8547 5375.

Timescale

Once the current consultation on sites is completed in October, the borough will move to publish its Waste Plan by February 2010, which will guide where waste facilities can be sited, provide criteria for assessing planning applications and set out residents’ desired outcomes from any development.

This will be submitted to the secretary of state in July 2010 and examined by an independent inspector by December 2010, with a view to adopting a combined Waste Plan between all four councils by September 2011.

Meanwhile, the number of bidding companies hoping to run the partnership’s waste disposal contract will be slimmed down to a short list of between six and eight by January 2010, and whittled down to the final two by July 2010.

The preferred bidder is due to be chosen in March 2011, with contract closed two months later.

If all goes to plan, the new facilities will be operational by spring 2014.

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