DCLG publishes WFD guidance for local authorities
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has published guidance detailing how local authorities can best follow the European Union’s revised Waste Framework Directive (rWFD) when setting out waste management plans.
The document, ‘Guidance for local planning authorities on implementing planning requirements of the European Union Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC)’, released yesterday (18 December), is aimed ‘primarily at waste planning authorities’ but also relates to other ‘non-waste’ local planning authorities and highlights the main legal and policy provisions needed to ‘ensure compliance with the directive’.
According to the guidance, planning authorities should ‘prepare and deliver planning strategies which drive waste management up the hierarchy, addressing waste as a resource and looking to dispose as the last option’.
A checklist for local waste plans is also provided, detailing the questions that need to be answered when compiling a waste management plan. These include:
- How will the key planning objectives, including the waste hierarchy, be delivered?
- What is the assessment of existing and future generation of waste arising over the plan period?
- Where will the waste be managed?
- What is the waste management capacity from existing waste and future facilities?
Though waste planning authorities are asked to observe the ‘principles of proximity and self-sufficiency’ under Article 16 of the directive, the DCLG says that there ‘is no expectation that each waste planning authority will deal solely with its own waste’.
It adds that working collaboratively with neighbouring authorities in some cases would be beneficial, as ‘there are clearly some wastes which are produced in small quantities for which it would be uneconomic to have a facility in each local authority’.
Waste planning authorities are also reminded that though they must currently follow the government’s Planning Policy Statement 10 (PPS10), these will be revised under next year’s National Waste Management Plan. The DCLG adds however, that the main route for compliance will be ‘through the preparation of up-to-date local plans’.
Despite the fact that the majority of local authorities use alternate weekly collections for waste, the DCLG reaffirms its position outlined in its Weekly Collection Support Scheme, that ‘the government is committed to supporting local authorities to introduce, retain or reinstate a weekly collection of residual waste and/or recycling’. However, it does not specify a particular collection method.
Local planning authorities which do not deal directly with waste planning applications, are also expected to adhere to the rWFD, and the guidance outlines several actions these authorities can take to ensure compliance. These include:
- Working ‘constructively’ with waste planning authorities to identify and protect sites needed for waste management facilities;
- Considering ‘where relevant’ the likely impact of proposed, non-waste related development on existing waste management sites, ensuring that they do not ‘prejudice the implementation’ of the local waste strategy;
- Promoting ‘sound management of waste’ from any proposed development;
- And encouraging sustainable design of any proposed development through the use of recycled products, recovery of on-site material and the ‘provision of facilities for the storage and regular collection of waste’.
The DCLG adds that the guidance should be read alongside the government’s planning policy for waste management, currently set out in Planning Policy Statement 10 and its companion guide.
