In 2012, Gloucestershire County Council agreed a £500 million contract with corporate developer UBB (Urbaser Balfour Beatty) to build and operate a huge "mass burn" incinerator at Javelin Park, Haresfield, on the edge of the Cotswolds designated Area Of Natural Beauty, to be paid for using taxpayers' money.
Negotiations were shrouded in secrecy and no public consultation was entered into with respect to cleaner and cheaper waste solutions [1], which were - and still are - available. We do not know the contents of the contract, because they have never been fully revealed.
What we do know is that
- democratic bodies representing over half of the county opposed the plans (2 MPs, 3 District Councils,19 Town and Parish Councils)
- 3 weeks after the contract was actually signed, in 2013, the Gloucestershire County Council Planning Committee, after a full hearing of all sides of the debate, voted unanimously to refuse planning permission [2]
And yet, on the 7th of January 2015, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles overturned that democratic planning decision.
Now we are being told that if the Council uphold democracy and cancel the contract with UBB there will be a massive penalty to pay - up to £100 million - yet we are not being told how they have reached this figure.
We have a right to know how this happened. It is our money, our environment and our health that are at issue and we are not being told the whole story.
NOTES:
[1] An MBT (Mechanical Biological Treatment) plant already has planning permission in Gloucestershire - and UBB themselves have been commissioned to build one in Essex. See the developer's own explanation of its advantages:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gVTCv92hHWNDs5LxcJ7CoEruEPxuad9gul-T9nIsuI4/edit
[2] Among the reasons for refusal were:
- evidence of air pollution and fear of health risk
- competition with sustainable methods such as recycling
- huge impact on the landscape
- high CO2 emissions
- significant import of waste from elsewhere required to maintain function
