Residents up in arms as council agrees incinerator contract (From Banbury Cake)

Interesting to learn that WRG are now proposing a 'compost plant' at Sutton Courtenay - sound innocuous doesn't it? Last I heard was that WRG have applied for planning permission to build a large MBT plant capable of processing material from either or both Oxfordshire and West London.

So much for a democratic society. The views of the voters who put the councillors in their position have been ignored and ridden over roughshod. I wonder if there are any further plans to add to the windfarm and incinerator for our poor village and its surrounding neighbours. Let's face it we seem to be place to put everything that nobody else wants. What benefits will we the villagers get from these monstrous applications? Disgusted.

Honeytown wrote:
So much for a democratic society. The views of the voters who put the councillors in their position have been ignored and ridden over roughshod. I wonder if there are any further plans to add to the windfarm and incinerator for our poor village and its surrounding neighbours. Let's face it we seem to be place to put everything that nobody else wants. What benefits will we the villagers get from these monstrous applications? Disgusted.

You have either totally missed the point, or your opposition has made you blind to common sense. The council signed this to save money if planning permission is given, a very sensible decision, because if they didn't sign and planning consent was given. I am sure you would be the first to complain that the cost had gone up by £5 million. The planning committee are totally independant, and will make their decision based on the facts of the case. So don't worry, democracy will prevail one way or the other.

I just don't understand. If the contract is signed after planning approval, the cost will go up by £5m. Then why would Viridor want to sign the contract now as Viridor would have little to lose if planning approval is not granted but would get £5m less if plannning approval is granted ? Will the signing now increase the chance of getting approval ? What kind of gamble is this and why the council wish to be involved ? This doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe someone can explain.

Bicester retired wrote:
I just don't understand. If the contract is signed after planning approval, the cost will go up by £5m. Then why would Viridor want to sign the contract now as Viridor would have little to lose if planning approval is not granted but would get £5m less if plannning approval is granted ? Will the signing now increase the chance of getting approval ? What kind of gamble is this and why the council wish to be involved ? This doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe someone can explain.

Because when planning is approved, another company may come in and undercut Viridor. So it is a kind of insurance policy for both parties.

Apu,

As you said, when planning is approved, other companies will come to compete with Viridor, why will then we have to pay £5m more ? It is also possible that we can get a better deal. Is it really to our benefits to have the contract signed prior to planning approval?

Also, I may be wrong (as I have retired for quite some time) but I think that there is a government policy in place under EU law about tendering government projects, which requires fair competition among international tenderers. Is the current contract a result of open tenders ?

OCC could save a significant sum of money by shelving its proposed plan to award a massively oversized contract to Viridor to build an incinerator at Ardley. It could, instead, work with its Public - to whom it is accountable - to identify an alternative, smaller (but big enough to meet Oxfordshire's needs) operation with greener technology.
There is no need for OCC to burn an additional 150,000 tonnes of other Counties waste. The associated misery that it will cause to local residents is a strange "thank-you" for attaining some of the highest recycling rates in the UK.
And saving money? - Councillor Mitchell has allowed his Procurement department to align itself to a single provider with no guarantee of delivering - it has no facility or planning permission to build a facility. The Council has no contingency - should the planning appeal by Viridor be rejected. No surprise that Viridor is threatening a price increase if the contract is not signed - it is no longer in a competitive situation as OCC is considering the Viridor proposal to the EXCLUSION of any other.
Councillor Mitchell should realise that he is not buying double glazing on a "buy now or the price will increase" threat. He is about to commit a massive sum of PUBLIC money to a PRIVATE company that will be rewarded handsomely in terms of profit and shareholder return for its PRIVATE investors. Such a scenario in the private sector would lead to difficult questions over the competency of the procurement department. OCC is completely "over a barrel" and at the mercy of Viridor. It claims there is no alternative and that "time is running out" - a situation of its own making.
In fact there is an alternative as a greener MBT pant is being proposed at Sutton Courtney as WRG, the provider, has accepted that incineration is not the way forward to manage waste. WRG has stated that this could be very useful in assisting OCC to manage its waste.
If Councillor Mitchell continues down this blinkered route, he and his cabinet colleagues will prove their contempt for their electorate. As others have stated - focus on the essentials, not the "nice to have". I am sure it would be "nice to have" a piece of the revenue from the handling of other counties or commercial waste - if this is the case go out into the private sector and compete for commercial opportunities. This is NOT the role of a PUBLIC body. Discharge your obligation to spend public funds in the most cost effective way, on ESSENTIAL projects, and at the same time protect the interests of your Public.
Let the Private contractor worry about its shareholders and do not allow it to "piggy-back" a commercial opportunity onto a publically funded project.

Ian Groves of Ardley is quire correct in his assessment of OCC's less than competent handling of procuring plant(s) to deal with Oxfordshire's residual waste. Unfortunately, in the fog of confusion, generated by by the process to date, he has allowed himself to be characterised as just as short-sighted as OCC's leadership, by indicating that the alternative to an incinerator at Ardley would obviously be an MBT at Sutton Courtenay. The whole point is that at NO TIME, since it's first deliberations in 2006, has OCC appropriately considered the disposal of Oxfordshire's residual waste, taken into account public opinion, nor has it correctly calculated what demand for such facilites would be. In truth, neither a large incinerator nor a large centralised MBT would meet many of the principles of green, sustainable, healthful waste disposal. Those of us who have campaigned against incineration are aware of the health risks, but are also concerned by issues of the proximity principle - that waste should be treated as close as possible to its source, thereby avoiding transportation emissions and nuisance.
Large, centralised waste processing units fail on this test - such as large incinerators or a large MBT plants located in a rural areas.
If residual wate occurs (this is a big if as recycling improves) solutions to dealing with it would probably ideally include small, localised plant in major areas of population - cities & large towns.
Of course, waste companies do not see it like this - they much prefer economies of scale, greenfield sites, publicly funded transport infrastructure etc.
The public, however, should not be bamboozled by the interests of multinational big business and their elected representatives should seek to protect their voters, not mis-arrange things such that we are only offered Hobson's choice.

Ian Groves of Ardley and Megs of Sutton Courtenay,

To clarify the situation, I think that the best way forward is to use the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the council to give us all relevant information about how the contract was agreed and signed, starting from planning to tendering and including correspondences and minutes of meetings to show how councillors arrived at the decision. Only knowing the details can we understand the process thoroughly and whether everything has been done properly to protect the taxpayers' interests. We may be wrong or have misunderstood the council's action and most important is to know the truth. This is how democracy works!

Retired, There is an amount of information in the public domain - campaigns against incineration in Oxfordshire have accessed this over the past year or so and attended many council meetings, as public observers. However, the basic problem remains not secrecy, but the parameters that OCC chose, a priori, especially the infamous 'technology neutral' approach, to generate options for disposing of Oxfordshire's residual waste. This coupled with inadequate public consultation in the early stages led to a situation where tendering companies could almost only produce proposals for incinerators. I guess
we'll never know if this was conspiracy or incompetence. On various selection criteria this already limited choice was then narrowed down to two proposals, a final selection being made on operational considerations and, essentially, cost (Viridor at Ardley) - these documents are available.
However, almost simultaneously, OCC's Planning Committee refused planning permission for both proposals. Hence the appeal by Viridor.
It does seem a bit odd that OCC should already be signing a contract with Viridor, but I guess this is just the way public bodies do things - presumably it is a signal of intent should the appeal be successful.
If the appeal is unsuccessful then OCC will be back to where it was several years ago. It will have to call for tenders for proposals to deal with Oxfordshire's residual waste, again. There is no question that the Council could say, 'we'll just set up a scheme somewhere else', even if another company is handily working up an alternative proposal. Taxpayers can rightly be very annoyed with how the council have managed the process to date. The failings can be directly attributed to lack of appropriate public consultation in the first place - lack of democracy if you will.
Just a word though, on FoI. I together with other campaigners, have spent a considerable amount of time over the past 18 months studying documentation on this issue. I have found the planning department at OCC helpful and have obtained FoI materials on matters other than planning. I would say, however, that minutes are not often very useful. Further, it seems that OCC are empowered to redact some materials, especially when they are deemed to be commercially sensitive, so contracts entered into with Viridor are unlikely to be forthcoming.

For megs of Sutton Courtenay.
I am not suggesting that MBT at Sutton Courtenay is THE alternative solution but AN alternative solution. I am in contact with anti-incineration members from SC who have been very supportive of our campaign.
We at Ardley and the surrounding Parish's are more than happy to be part of the solution and would be pleased to work with OCC on acceptable alternatives. This is not a case of NIMBYISM - we just want to be treated fairly and HONESTLY by our elected members.
I fully subscribe to the proximity principle as this makes obvious sense. Unfortunately this is at odds with the ONLY proposal that OCC is prepared to consider. As I stated at the recent Planning Inquiry - if common sense was a material planning issue there would be no planning appeal and we could all work together on finding the best solution, not arguing over the "only" solution.
OCC is not prepared to release information regarding the price structure of the proposal - nor much of the background that would show how OCC has reached this point. We can draw our own conclusions as to why. In the meantime we are looking to see if this can be challenged. A similar situation between Nottingham CC and Veolia suggests that such info should be made available to the Public.

Ian,
Reading what you have posted certainly gives the impression that you support WRG's "greener" (your word) MBT proposal for Sutton Courtenay. Yes, us SC campaigners have always taken the position of no incineration in Ardley or anywhere for that matter. For my part, I have published copiously on the subject. However, as one of the major activists in our campaign I am unaware of anyone whom I have worked in detail alongside who supports WRG's MBT proposal. There are a number of reasons for this, which will become public during the planning consultation process. You can rest assured that the WRG MBT proposal as it currently stands, is neither "the" or "an" alternative.

Both Megs and Ian Groves are to be commended. While there may appear to be a polarity about their discussion, two points at least need to be identified. Ian's work for the Ardley at the appeal should be saluted. He has diligently, intelligently and in a principled way striven to oppose the runaway monster activities of our CC.
Megs also deserves real commendation for her passionate vision and doughty, stance as she excoriates the less than translucent machinations of the waste industries big players.
The issue, upon which both Ian and Megs, I'm sure, would agree is that the real need is to roll out decent recycling and proper waste reduction measures on a serious scale NATIONALLY. This will hugely diminish the pressure to ship in vast tranches of waste from urban areas outside Oxfordshire.