The Saddlebow Incinerator

Following the decision made earlier in the year to cancel the contract for the proposed waste incinerator at Saddlebow, the County Council set up an advisory group which was asked to consider future alternatives.

Amongst a number of polices the group has proposed is one that specifically rejects any incineration of waste in Norfolk - though it does allow for the incineration of Norfolk's waste outside the county boundary!  Indeed, the Council has already arranged for the Suffolk Council's incinerator to handle some of Norfolk's waste until early 2016.

The Council Director of environment has stated that it was expected that there was sufficient capacity, regionally, nationally, and internationally, to deal with Norfolk waste until 2020. It was not therefore expected that any other waste management scheme would become operational before that date.

However, planning for the future, beyond 2020,  would have to be set in motion within the next year. The Council would have to state precisely what would be required of any contractor expected to provide a service to the County.

It is expected that a full council meeting will debate the matter in December. A planned conference, to be held in the spring of 2015, was to examine the options available to the authority for the disposal of the County's waste in the future.

UPDATE JULY 18 2014

The County Council has made the first 'penalty' payment to Cory Wheelabrator as a con sequence of cancelling the contract for the incinerator.

The sum of £11.9 million represents costs incurred through changes in interest and foreign exchange rates.

Further payments are expected to be made in September. About £22 million is due to be paid, being costs involved with the public inquiry and expenses incurred by Cory Wheelabrator in presenting and following up the plans for the plant.

The County Council has also agreed a two year contract to send waste to an incinerator in Suffolk. Approximately 20% of the waste material that cannot be recycled will be sent to Suffolk - though this requires the approval of DEFRA before it can go ahead.

Meantime, it is reported that Cory Wheelabrator still hopes to obtain planning permission for the Saddlebow scheme.

UPDATE JUNE 18 2014

From The Lynn News - 17 June 2014.

The NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE says in a report recently published that there was a 'lack of clarity' in the County Council's dealings with Cory Wheelabrator.

The report states that the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) was concerned about the matter well before the contract was signed in 2012.

The report continues...

" From 2012 the Department raised specific concerns with Norfolk that the proposed timetable might not be achievable".

DEFRA also questioned whether the council had fully considered the consequences of not winning planning consent.

The current county council leader, George Nobbs, has said that "it is now clear that the original decision to enter into the contract has turned out to be disastrous".

(To date the Secretary of State has still not made known his decision regarding planning consent)

UPDATE MAY 30th 2014

A recent County Council debate passed a motion which has barred County officials from any action concerning the Saddlebow site until after a new waste disposal policy is decided upon. Further, future plans or recommendations for the use of the site will have to be presented to the full Council for a final decision.

(Webmaster comment: This was of course something that didn't happen when the Cabinet signed the original contract with Cory Wheelabrator - the full Council was not given the opportunity to discuss the matter)

UPDATE MAY 21st 2014

The Lynn News reports that the County Council continues to 'assess the future of the Saddlebow site' (which it owns); it is not ruling anything out. In mind is the fact that the county has to find a long term solution to the problem of the disposal of waste in the county; it is too early to say what kind of solution that might be.

It is expected that the cost of cancelling the previous contract with Cory Wheelabrator will rise to £33.3million. The full Council will meet on May 27th. to consider a recommendation from Cabinet concerning the costs of terminating the contract.

It has also been reported today that the Government has made it known that it will not be contributing to the cancellation costs. It considers that the matter is entirely between the County Council and the contractor and it sees no reason why the national purse should be involved.

UPDATE MAY 14th 2014

NOT YET GONE PERHAPS??

It is reported that Cory Wheelabrator, the company that was contracted by the County Council to build the planned incinerator, still wants to go ahead with the project, despite the County Council having cancelled it.

Cory Wheelabrator says that the County Council, which owns the site, could still use it, if planning permission is given. The fact that at present there is no contract in place does not alter the fact that there is a planning application before the Secretary of State, awaiting a decision.

Planning permission is of course in the hands of the Secretary of State for the Department of Communities & Local Government; his decision on the matter, following the public enquiry which ended about a year ago, remains to be made.

There have been recent suggestions that the Borough Council, in a move to prevent future construction, might purchase the site from the County Council. This raises the question, of why, if it is thought that the Secretary of State might give approval, would the County Council sell it to the Borough at this time?

UPDATE APRIL 7th 2014

Norfolk County Council have today voted to terminate the contract with Cory Wheelabrator to build an energy-from-waste plant and recycling centre at the Saddlebow Industrial Area in King's Lynn.

There were 49 votes in favour of terminating the contract and 29 against with one abstention.

Cabinet met after the council meeting and confirmed that the contract would be terminated

...................GOING - GOING -

This action follows the unwillingness, or inability, of the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, to make a decision regarding the planning application. Following the Public Inquiry, which closed about a year ago, the Secretary of State was expected to make a decison on whether planning permission should be granted. Failing this decison being made, and with no date being given by when it would be made, the County Council at an Extraordinary Meeting today (7 April 2014) discussed the matter and voted to terminate the contract. As stated above, the Council Cabinet then endorsed the vote and agreed to terminate the contract.......GONE

It is expected that penalties for cancelling will amount to about £30 million, a sum which the County Council will have to finance.

UPDATE APRIL 1st 2014

COUNCIL OFFICERS ARE NOW ADVISING THE COUNTY COUNCIL THAT THE PLANS FOR THE INCINERATOR ARE NO LONGER COST EFFECTIVE AND RECOMMEND THAT THE SCHEME SHOULD BE SCRAPPED.

County Councillors are to discuss the matter of the incinerator at a meeting of the full Council on Monday 7th April 2014. A vote will be taken of the views of the Councillors on whether to proceed or to cancel the project. The result of the vote will be known to the Cabinet when it makes the final decision. It would not be expected that the Cabinet would take an opposite view to that of the Council.

At present, Council Officers estimate that the compensation payable as the cost of cancelling the project will be about £30m. Henry Bellingham, the local MP, suggests that the Government may be willing to assist in payment of the compensation.

UPDATE 21 March 2014

MAKE OR BREAK DAY

The date for the second vote by County Councillors, to determine whether to proceed with, or to cancel, the incinerator project (see update 21 February below), has been made known - Monday April 7th.  The Council's cabinet will make the final decision on the same day.

UPDATE 15 March 2014

The politicians continue to squabble......

The Lynn News reports that....

In a letter to the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, three councillors, including the leader George Nobbs, the Government is accused of being "Wholly unreasonable" in delaying the decision on the incinerator project.

However, opponents have accused the signatories to the letter of making "glaring inaccuracies" and that the delay does in fact give the opportunity to further explore alternatives to the incinerator.

The letter to the Secretary of State argues that "it seems wholly unreasonable to withhold the decision... in the knowledge that the County Council is prejudiced financially by the delay".

(This of course refers to the fact that the cost of cancelling the contract with Cory Wheelabrator will rise by about £5m if it is made after April).

The letter continues by saying "This protracted delay is damaging both to council taxpayers and the public faith in democracy".

However, a group of councillors against the incinerator say that that suggestion is "uncalled for and untrue". Their letter to Pickles said the delay "offers the council a further vote next month (see below) to come out of this now widely and publicly discredited contract altogether, with massive net savings, not costs, all of which will restore faith in the County Council's processes".

The group rejected the idea that delay was costing the council money..  "the budget agreed last month had allowed for compensation to be paid, if necessary, without impacting on services".

A spokesman for Eric Picles' department has said that "A decision will be made by Ministers in due course"

UPDATE 21 February 2014

In a deal, not unconnected with getting the budget for the forthcoming year approved, the County Council has agreed to allow a further vote by Councillors concerning the future of the incinerator (see update below dated 19 February for details).

An extraordinary meeting of the full Council will be held before May, to discuss the contract with Cory Wheelabrator for the construction of the incinerator. Following the discussion there will be a vote by Councillors to decide whether to cancel the contract.

UPDATE 19 February 2014

The Lynn News reports that a cross party group of Councillors is calling for a further meeting of the full Council to re-consider the future of the incinerator.  The group is drawing attention to the information from Council Officers that the cost of cancelling the contract will rise further - to around £31,000,000 - if a decision is not made by the beginning of May; it believes that the decision to cancel the project should be made now, before the cost increases further.

UPDATE 13 January 2014

MORE DELAY.....

Eric Pickles', the Secretary of State for The Department of Communities and Local Government   (DCLG), has postponed making his decision about the future of the proposed incinerator; it had been expected that the decision would be announced on 14 January.

It appears that it has not been decided when the announcement will be made - though a couple of months further delay has been mooted.

The leader of the County Council has said that this delay will cause further cuts to the Council's services for the coming year; not knowing the outcome of the incinerator decision means that the Council cannot be certain what costs it will incur, and therefore cannot be certain about the budget for the year. The Council, which is expected to fix the budget by the end of the week (Friday 17th. January), will therefore have to allow for additional costs in connection with the possible cancelling of the project. This is at a time when it already has to make savings in the budget. The expected cost to the Council of cancelling the project is close to £26,000,000.

UPDATE 6 December 2013

The latest news on the subject is that Eric Pickles' department, The Department of Communities and Local Government ( DCLG), who will be responsible for making the decision on whether to allow the incinerator project to go ahead, has written to the main groups involved inviting them to make further comment on the subject.

Recently, West Norfolk Borough Council, Norfolk County Council and Cory Wheelabrator have all contacted the DCLG on matters concerning the project.

In the letter to the main parties involved, the DCLG says that it is not yet in a position to determine the application and invites comments about correspondence it has received - that is the correspondence from the three parties referred to above. DCLG have also copied KLWIN into the correspondence. All have until 12th December to make further comment.

It is expected that DCLG will make the final decision early in 2014.

UPDATE 22 November 2013

Norfolk County Council has made plans to find the cash that will be required, some £25m, to pay to Cory Wheelabrator if the planning application is refused. As stated earlier, the matter is now in the hands of the Secretary of State who will decide whether or not to grant planning permision for the construction of the plant.

UPDATE 29 OCTOBER 2013

As expected, the Cabinet endorsed the decision of the Council to go ahead with the project.

It would now seem that the matter is entirely in the hands of the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, who, following the Public Enquiry held earlier this year, has to decide whether to give planning permission for the construction of the plant; without planning permission the project cannot proceed. This decision is expected to be made later this year or early in 2014.

UPDATE 28 OCTOBER 2013

At a meeting of the full County Council at County Hall on Monday 28th. October 2013, members voted by a majority of 2 to recommend accepting the revised plan to build the incinerator.

It is to be expected that the Council Cabinet will endorse the decision at a meeting to be held on Tuesday 29th. See more here

UPDATE 22 OCTOBER 2013

Latest information suggests that the likely cost to the County Council of abandoning the project would be £25.9m.

The Council has said that there is no budget allowance for this sum and that cuts are likely to have to be made to cover this cost. This occurs at a time when efforts are having to be made to reduce Council expenditure.

It has been suggested that some County Councillors, who may have been elected on an anti incinerator ticket in May, could change their stance and now move to support the incinerator - as a means of eliminating the penallty due if it were cancelled.

The next move is likely to be made at a meeting of the County Council on Monday 28th October, when a decision will have to be made about whether or not to recommend that the Council should adopt Cory Wheelabrator's revised plan.

The Council Cabinet will meet the following day to discuss the council's decision.

UPDATE 18 OCTOBER 2013

 GOVERNMENT (DEFRA) WITHDRAWS FUNDING FOR THE PROJECT.

DEFRA has withdrawn the £169m of credits that had been awarded to the planned Willows incinerator project.

However, it is also said that by continuing with the project, the County Council will still be on the winning side financially - somewhere of the order of £1.3m/annum.

The County Council could still cancel the project of its own accord, and seek other means of waste disposal. There is a deadline, October 29th, for the Council to decide upon the revised plan put forward by Cory Wheelabrator.

Should the Council cancel the project there will be a penalty to be paid - said to be about £20m - the same sum due should planning permission not be granted. However, various figures have been quoted for the size of the penalty due if the project were cancelled.

UPDATE 4 October 2013.

Two Borough Councillors have resigned from the ruling Conservative group, in a row about waste disposal. The argument revolves around a re-cycling contract that would allow some waste, which cannot be re-cycled, to be sent to north Lincolnshire - for incineration. The argument is that the council, which has adopted a position against incineration at King's Lynn, should not be considering incineration of its waste somewhere else.

 .... Which takes us to the proposal  of a group of County Councillors, who are suggesting that, as an alternative to the Willows incinerator, all the County's waste should be sent to Holland ....... for incineration.

The group has been told that if the Government credits of £169m, over a 25 year period, towards the cost of the Willows incinerator were withdrawn, the County Council would save between £18m and £88m.

However, if the grant remains in place then the alternative proposal would be more expensive,  £40m - £110m more expensive. But the County Councillor responsible for waste disposal disputes the figures.

At County level, Mr Toby Coke, the local County Councillor has written to the County Council Chairman calling for an extraordinary meeting of the full Council, to debate whether the Council should accept, or reject, a revised plan presented by Cory Wheelabrator. It is understood that if the Council were to reject the revised plan, by a deadline of October 29th, the whole project would effectively be scrapped. The penalty for cancelling the project would then be held at £20m - the same as if planning permission were denied.

It had previously been said, by Council officers, that the cost to the Council of cancelling the project could be as high as £90m.

UPDATE 27 September 2013.

KLWIN (King's Lynn without incinerator) has suggested that if you wish to support their campaign against the Willows incinerator you should now write to the Secretary of State expressing your views.

KLWIN has provided a 'model' letter that you may wish to use - see below. Letters should show your name and address and not be sent anonymously.

KLWIN suggests that the letter should be sent to:-

The Secretary of State for the Environment - Rt Hon. Owen Patterson MP,

and to

The Secretary of State  for the Department of Communities & Local Government - Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP,

and copies to local MPs -

Rt Hon Henry Bellingham and Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss.

All letters to MPs may be adressed to the named MP at

House of Commons, London, SW1 0AA

PLEASE NOTE that East Winch & West Bilney Community Project have posted the following text as a service to villagers. We have no view on the matter concerning the incinerator and our posting this does not imply that we endorse the aims of KLWIN.

The proposed text reads....

Rt. Hon Owen Paterson

House of Commons

London SW1A 0AA

Dear Secretary of State

Cancelling the Norfolk Incinerator

The Government subsidy for the “Willows incinerator” is not justified and should be withdrawn.

This costly waste of public money may be good for Cory Wheelabrator, and those actively lobbying on their behalf, but it is not good for the taxpayers.

At the proposed site, the Willows cannot comply with standard Environment Agency conditions (SR2012 No.13) for processing bottom ash, this means the rules had to be relaxed for it to get its permit. It does not deserve Government backing or planning permission.

Please withdraw Government support for it now and revoke its permit.

UPDATE. JUNE 24 2013

At the Council meeting held on 17 June, it was expected that the matter of the future of the incinerator would be discussed; however,  party leaders agreed a motion saying that it would be premature to debate the issue further, until the outcome of the independent reviews was known. The motion was passed by the council. No decision on future action will therefore be made by the council at this time.

Following the public inquiry into the planning application, the decision of the Secretary of State is not expected until later this year, or early in 2014. It follows therefore that the matter is once again 'on hold'.

UPDATE. JUNE  2013

The County Council is to establish an independent review into the implications of withdrawing from the contract with Cory Wheelbrator.

The review is to consider the way in which the contract was initially agreed by the Council and the means and likely costs of cancelling it.

It had previously been reported that cancelling the contract would cost about £20 million, though more recently the figure of £90m has been quoted.

The new review will be conducted by three barristers, who will consider the legal aspects of the situation; in addition, the District Auditor will nominate three others who will be asked to look at the financial implications. In order to show the independence of the inquiry, those who have campaigned against the project will be involved in appointing the review body.

The Council have made no secret of the fact that this review will be made at a cost to the ratepayers - though as yet have not put a price on it. George Nobbs, the Council leader, says however that, in view of the situation, the additional cost would be justified.

THE PUBLIC INQUIRY:-

The Public Inquiry, which commenced on 26th. February 2013, has now closed.

The Inspector will, in due course, submit a report and her recommendations to the Secretary of State, who will make the final decision on the outcome of the plan to construct and operate the incinerator. This decision may be expected late this year or early in 2014.

    MEANWHILE ...     The County Council elections ended in a stalemate of sorts - with the previously ruling Conservative party remaining as the largest party represented, but with no overall control. At the time of writing, nearly two weeks after the election, there is no agreement between the Councillors, no Chairman of the Council appointed , and so the Council is unable to function properly; the day to day running of the council is being conducted by Officers of the Authority.

There is to be an extraordinary meeting of Councillors to try to resolve the situation.

However, there is to be a full Council debate on the matter of the incinerator. This is likely to be held by June 17th. The Council could at this point decide either to continue with or possibly to abandon the project. Ultimately, the Secretary of State might resolve the matter.

 see - The Planning Application.