Gloucestershire councillors call for meeting on Javelin Park
Five Liberal Democrats on Gloucestershire County Council have submitted a written request to the Conservative-led authority's chairman, asking for an extraordinary council meeting to be arranged this month to push Secretary of State Eric Pickles to make a decision on the future of the proposed Javelin Park incinerator.
The proposed energy-from-waste facility at Javelin Park, near Haresfield, forms part of Urbaser Balfour Beatty’s (UBB) waste contract with the council (estimated to be worth approximately £500 million).
Developed to burn 190,000 tonnes of residual waste to produce electricity, the plans for the incinerator were first approved by the previous Conservative-led government, but have since been scuppered by ongoing delays in planning permission. In 2013 the new council refused planning consent for the incinerator on the grounds that, by the end of the waste contract, the technology would be antiquated and ‘inflexible’. However, when UBB appealed the council’s decision, the application was called in for inquiry by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).
Despite this announcement being delayed three times (a decision was first expected to be reached in September 2014, but this was delayed until late November and then again until ‘before or on 22 December 2014’), no decision has yet been made.
DCLG had previously said that the ‘complex planning application’ was being delayed due to the department receiving ‘post-inquiry representations, which… need to [be] carefully consider[ed]’.
The planning delay has raised some concerns to the financial viability of the project, after a similar delay by Pickles led Norfolk County Council to abandon its incinerator project, costing it more than £30 million. Indeed, the Gloucestershire County Council has been considering alternative residual waste plans for the past year.
Demand for decision to be made by 26 March
Liberal Democrat councillors are now calling for the council to hold an extraordinary meeting to consider pushing Pickles to make a decision imminently.
Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Councillor Jeremy Hilton, said: “Once this meeting has been arranged, we’ll be insisting the Leader of this Council, Councillor Mark Hawthorne writes to the Secretary of State immediately.
“Two years ago, the county council’s planning committee unanimously rejected permission to build a massive waste incinerator at Javelin Park. It is a disgrace that Eric Pickles, has for the third time, failed to make a decision on whether or not such a facility should be built.
“We demand that Mr. Pickles makes his decision no later than the start of the 2015 general election purdah period, i.e. Thursday 26th March 2015.”
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson, who has also put his name requesting for an additional meeting, added: “The situation has gone beyond a joke. I cannot see any legitimate reason why the Secretary of State cannot make a decision one way or the other over the building of a mass-burning incinerator at Javelin Park…
“It is time the Leader of the County Council stood up for residents and demand that this decision is made before the elections in May.”
The Liberal Democrats also blamed the previous council for its “shambolic approach” to the waste contract, which meant that the contract was signed before planning permission was considered.
Move is politically motivated
Speaking to Resource, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Resources at Gloucestershire County Council, Councillor Ray Theodoulou, said that the council had already agreed to write to Pickles, and that the move by the Liberal Democrats was politically, rather than socially, motivated.
He commented: “I understand they’re desperate – but this is a pretty obvious attempt by the Liberal Democrat’s two parliamentary candidates to get publicity in the run up to their election. Our full council unanimously agreed, less than 3 months ago, to write to the Secretary of State calling for this decision to be taken as quickly as possible, something I’ve publicly supported on a number of occasions.
“Council officers estimate that an emergency council meeting will cost taxpayers at least £2,000 – that’s the Council Tax from two Gloucestershire families. That money should be spent on services in Gloucestershire – not on a desperate attempt by the Lib Dems to grub for votes.”
Find out more about the Javelin Park facility.
