Incinerator plan in crisis after funding is pulled (From York Press)

Serves them right for expecting someone else to pay for it - another of A&E's glory projects gone bad.

So, DEFRA now agree with the people who opposed the incinerator, saying it isn't necessary. What a mess, a huge mess.
Shame on NYCC and CoYC for approving this in the first place; shows they were wrong.
The answer is a zero-waste plan, going for a MUCH higher recycling rate.

I've been doing recycling surveys this week, door to door, and there are still significant numbers of people who don't recycle, and LOADS who don't compost. This situation can be improved. Put me in charge of waste and recycling and I'd get the amount of landfill down!

The public are also "baffled and disappointed" about how this project is being managed.

Doesnt have to mean bigger cuts - If the councils have had enough sense to write into the contract a get out clause if government funding is not available they just need to remove the most expensive element, the incinerator, and put more effort into cutting the volume of waste generated in the first place. This project has already led to massive cuts to pay for the technical and financial consultants who drew up the spec and contract. All three main parties refused to entertain the notion that work should go into exploring alternatives, now the whole project has come unstuck they have got to seriously start to look at other options asap or we will be clobbered with massive bills for landfilling the waste.

Lets hope if this falls through NYCC sues central government for the suggested £6.5M the project has cost it so far !!!

Coun Alexander said: "I'm not happy with the situation; it's shambolic.

Now he knows how we feel.

John Cossham wrote:
So, DEFRA now agree with the people who opposed the incinerator, saying it isn't necessary. What a mess, a huge mess.
Shame on NYCC and CoYC for approving this in the first place; shows they were wrong.
The answer is a zero-waste plan, going for a MUCH higher recycling rate.

I've been doing recycling surveys this week, door to door, and there are still significant numbers of people who don't recycle, and LOADS who don't compost. This situation can be improved. Put me in charge of waste and recycling and I'd get the amount of landfill down!

I do not think this shows that NYCC and CoYC were wrong. What is shows is that we have a central government that misleads people, cannot stand by a decision and does not care about the country.

"What is shows is that we have a central government that misleads people, cannot stand by a decision and does not care about the country"

- yup , that too, just like Blair's govt before it!

Withdrawing the PFI Credits is the best thing ever to happen for the residents of North Yorkshire around Allerton. Well done Andres Jones MP for making your position known, but please do not give up the fight, Andrew for the battle is still not won.

This programme for NYCC and York City CC was never needed from the start. See further down after the note about Bradford.

Now when you add to this the fact that the same reasoning behind stopping the Bradford programme (the withdrawal of PFI Credits) then you can appreciate the fact that at last the Government is taking notice of the total anger of the Public against incinerators in the UK.

Quite frankly dear MPs although we hate them for their poor environmental images in discharging over us toxins and carcinogenic wastes and emissions they are too expensive.

We as the Council Tax Payers cannot afford them.

We as the Government Tax Payers cannot afford them.

This PFI system does not reduce the Public Sector Borrowing Ratio at all: it just adds to it and like the proverbial old-fashioned term was payment through the "Never-Never"

You all must have been aware that this project was a non-go a long time ago when there is a better choice to turn what is left after recycling to make biofuels like bioethanol for road transport. Such a proposal has been proposed just a few miles away in South Milford by Mytum and Selby Recycling Limited where there is a project awaiting start that will cost considerably less than the £400 Million for the Allerton project. It is and was brought to this newspapers attention last year capable of treating more than the Allerton programme of Waste for less than £100 Million! So let's now have some joined up thinking here on this programme. We do not need PFI credits for this project at South Milford because it does not need them.

Get the inert post-recycling residue onto trains and barges to sites in the UK where it can usefully help land reclamation....

So when the Government says "it's not needed", what they really mean is "The target has been met so you can stick it". The 'need' or otherwise doesn't come in to it as a tick has already been put in that particular box.

If NYCC and York hadn't ridden roughshod over public opinion with virtually no consultation, and no choice other than an incinerator, they wouldn't be in this mess, so can hardly bleat now. Questions should be asked over just how these councils allowed themselves to get in the position of having to now pay taxpayers money out on a scheme that doesn't go ahead. All involved in this undemocratic process should now face scrutiny

What Defra mean is: "we aren't happy with the brown envelopes they've given us, so we are saying that we will pull the funding to make them increase the amounts in the brown envelopes and then we will look at it again"

If the toxins that would be emitted can be dealt with surely the simplest and most effective way of dealing with waste would be 'If it has a calorific value; burn it to produce electricity/heat buildings, if it hasn't; recycle it'. Every kilowatt hour gained would save on the highest marginal CO2 emissions, currently coal burnt at Drax etc. I recently parted with a very heavy large 40+ year old carpet which went to landfill, but I estimate could have powered my home for a month. Micro sorting of waste suits some, and I do this myself, but the process is expensive in time and only 'economic' in the context of heavily taxed landfill. Just because a newspaper CAN be turned back into another newspaper, doesn't mean this is the only reuse option, and if the waste authority did the processing, there would be full compliance. Would I want to live near a waste fired power station?, the honest answer would be no,along with most others.

Given current costs and uncertainty about energy sources, rail’s energy efficiency is noteworthy. Network Rail has calculated that a tonne of goods can travel 246 miles by rail as opposed to 88 miles by road on a gallon of fuel.


More on waste by rail at http://www.freighton
rail.org.uk/CaseStud
yWasteByRail.htm

pedalling paul wrote:
Given current costs and uncertainty about energy sources, rail’s energy efficiency is noteworthy. Network Rail has calculated that a tonne of goods can travel 246 miles by rail as opposed to 88 miles by road on a gallon of fuel. More on waste by rail at http://www.freighton rail.org.uk/CaseStud yWasteByRail.htm

Yes, and look where calculations have got us up to now.

Wasn't it the last Labour government that forced local Council's to develop new waste disposal arrangements? They were obsessed with PFI schemes as a way of disguising the public sector borrowing requirements.

The option of continuing landfill simply wasn't made available.

The present government will rightly be criticised if it has allowed over 2 years to drift by without pulling the plugs on unaffordable - and apparently now unnecessary - new schemes. Local taxpayers should not pay the penalty for central government indecision.

Let's hear what the local Tory MPs are doing about the situation.

...and there is no such thing as "zero waste" and won't be for the forseeable future.

Sounds like good news to me

Nice to see the Government dropping more costs on to the council tax payer of North Yorkshire
This Government as done nothing but put more and more tax cost on the working people and given us nothing

TheTruthHurts wrote:
Sounds like good news to me

Yes, if you’re thick

John Cossham wrote:
So, DEFRA now agree with the people who opposed the incinerator, saying it isn't necessary. What a mess, a huge mess.
Shame on NYCC and CoYC for approving this in the first place; shows they were wrong.
The answer is a zero-waste plan, going for a MUCH higher recycling rate.

I've been doing recycling surveys this week, door to door, and there are still significant numbers of people who don't recycle, and LOADS who don't compost. This situation can be improved. Put me in charge of waste and recycling and I'd get the amount of landfill down!

You won't in charge of anything though, time and time again you put yourself to the people on the ballot paper and they say no thanks.

Perhaps Beckfield Lane tip will reopen now

Micklegate wrote:

John Cossham wrote:
So, DEFRA now agree with the people who opposed the incinerator, saying it isn't necessary. What a mess, a huge mess.
Shame on NYCC and CoYC for approving this in the first place; shows they were wrong.
The answer is a zero-waste plan, going for a MUCH higher recycling rate.

I've been doing recycling surveys this week, door to door, and there are still significant numbers of people who don't recycle, and LOADS who don't compost. This situation can be improved. Put me in charge of waste and recycling and I'd get the amount of landfill down!

You won't in charge of anything though, time and time again you put yourself to the people on the ballot paper and they say no thanks.

Hahaha, you probably don't realise WHY I stand in Hull Road Ward in local elections. If you did, then you wouldn't have made this silly comment.

My comment was a 'thought experiment'. I'm well read on waste issues and there are plenty of other ways of approaching waste than burning it, such as a zero waste policy (which works TOWARDS zero waste without incineration, to the numpty who said there wasn't such a thing as 'zero waste') and source separated collection made mandatory (like in parts of Europe.

If we can make the wearing of seatbelts 'normal' and the smoking of tobacco unacceptable in enclosed public spaces in a very short space of time, I don't think it's impossible to increase recycling rates significantly.

And, in case anyone is interested, the work I'm doing at the moment on attitudes to recycling and recycling behaviour is for DEFRA, so I hope it's understood that I might know just a teeny bit more about the subject than the average person, and certainly more than the person who is cowardly hiding behind the pseudonym 'Micklegate', who comes across as not very informed.

This omnishambolic government strikes again and not just in Yorkshire but also Bradford and Merseyside. Defra ministers should be dragged up north to answer for their incompetence.

"Council leaders said the announcement would cost taxpayers £6.5 million"

I bet they are crying into their champagne.

Thank goodness!

If waste disposal via this method is needed and if, as claimed, it is the most efficient and cost effective method available, then why, given 25 years of secured income, do the Contractors need State Funding/subsidies which will only drive up costs for everyone?.

It wasn't state funding and subsidies that drove the Industrial Revolution that generated our wealth and led to the ascendency of the UK in the world, but innovative engineering providing more cost effective and efficient processess in an open and free competitive market. That's the only general route we should be taking for all our infrastructure works and services to drive down costs, raise our productivity and competitiveness and rebuild our economy and export trade.

As the protesters have repeateadly advised there are far more efficiernt and cheaper processes for this waste disposal system.

Those responsible for promoting and developing this Project within the various Local Authorities involved have clearly not properly project managed the Works and have taken a very blinkered "one process only solution" approach from the outset! Why, we can only speculate!

In addition, they appear to have entered into a Contract with the Contractor, leading us to be liable for "cancellation" or other "compensation" costs if this Project does not go ahead, and have generated such a situation simply because they apparently signed up the Contractor before getting written contractual undertakings from the Government that the PFI funds would be provided. Clear evidence again, then, of lack of major Projects Procurement procedures experience of the staff involved!

Public Services and Works Procurement at both National and Local level continues to be a shambles with Contractors milking the cash cows that are continually being set up on Infrastructure Works and Services Contracts - all due to lack of Public Servants experience in "real world" commercial environments and generating unnecessary ongoing additional cost increases for all of us!

On a project costing £1.4 billion why should the removal of only £65 million kill it off?
The Contingency Fund would be more than that!

Something else is going on here other than the totally pathetic savings of £320 million on a cost of £1.4 billion!

Ignorance at the heart of this project summed up by both York leader James "Not in my backyard, stick it up the road" Alexander and NYCC leader James Weighell both continuing to be under the impression that waste is rising, when it's been in decline for years

Geoffers wrote:
On a project costing £1.4 billion why should the removal of only £65 million kill it off?
The Contingency Fund would be more than that!

Something else is going on here other than the totally pathetic savings of £320 million on a cost of £1.4 billion!

I agree!

Please understand this foreign Contractor's point of view! He needs the Government to fund this scheme as part of his "minimal risk" strategy.Why should he risk his own money? In addition, he has to include the "invoiced" costs of Consultants, Bankers, Insurers, Bondsmen, Due Dilligence Assessors and a multitude of other non-engineering, construction, and installation costs. Don't forget, also, the massive Head Office overhead that he will be charged by his overseas Group Company Headquarters, if only to massively reduce his UK tax costs! Then you've got "contingencies" which could be anything attributable to us the Client at inflated rates designed to massively increase earnings when "unforeseen" circumstances arise, such as them having to volunteer to provide privately sourced wastes to make up for the likely reduced YCC waste loads provided compared to what had been estimated by YCC!

It all adds up!

And both Liberal Councillors John Clark and John Savage, at NYCC voted against the scheme in the first place :)

Google -

"AmeyCespa, a Spanish government-owned waste management company!"

John Cossham wrote:

Micklegate wrote:

John Cossham wrote:
So, DEFRA now agree with the people who opposed the incinerator, saying it isn't necessary. What a mess, a huge mess.
Shame on NYCC and CoYC for approving this in the first place; shows they were wrong.
The answer is a zero-waste plan, going for a MUCH higher recycling rate.

I've been doing recycling surveys this week, door to door, and there are still significant numbers of people who don't recycle, and LOADS who don't compost. This situation can be improved. Put me in charge of waste and recycling and I'd get the amount of landfill down!

You won't in charge of anything though, time and time again you put yourself to the people on the ballot paper and they say no thanks.

Hahaha, you probably don't realise WHY I stand in Hull Road Ward in local elections. If you did, then you wouldn't have made this silly comment.

My comment was a 'thought experiment'. I'm well read on waste issues and there are plenty of other ways of approaching waste than burning it, such as a zero waste policy (which works TOWARDS zero waste without incineration, to the numpty who said there wasn't such a thing as 'zero waste') and source separated collection made mandatory (like in parts of Europe.

If we can make the wearing of seatbelts 'normal' and the smoking of tobacco unacceptable in enclosed public spaces in a very short space of time, I don't think it's impossible to increase recycling rates significantly.

And, in case anyone is interested, the work I'm doing at the moment on attitudes to recycling and recycling behaviour is for DEFRA, so I hope it's understood that I might know just a teeny bit more about the subject than the average person, and certainly more than the person who is cowardly hiding behind the pseudonym 'Micklegate', who comes across as not very informed.

Whilst I am not suggesting any impropriety, how is it possible with such a passionate interest and deep knowledge of the subject to do door to door surveys on behalf of DEFRA without the risk of influencing the results? I am always willing to answer genuine surveys, but would expect the person doing the task to be 'neutral'. With indepth knowledge it would be too easy to attribute meanings to answers that were not intended.

Oh this old chestnut..When this was first mooted some 25 years ago it was a non runner and here we are,25 years older,millions of pounds lighter and what have we learned?

Mulgrave wrote:

John Cossham wrote:

Micklegate wrote:

John Cossham wrote:
So, DEFRA now agree with the people who opposed the incinerator, saying it isn't necessary. What a mess, a huge mess.
Shame on NYCC and CoYC for approving this in the first place; shows they were wrong.
The answer is a zero-waste plan, going for a MUCH higher recycling rate.

I've been doing recycling surveys this week, door to door, and there are still significant numbers of people who don't recycle, and LOADS who don't compost. This situation can be improved. Put me in charge of waste and recycling and I'd get the amount of landfill down!

You won't in charge of anything though, time and time again you put yourself to the people on the ballot paper and they say no thanks.

Hahaha, you probably don't realise WHY I stand in Hull Road Ward in local elections. If you did, then you wouldn't have made this silly comment.

My comment was a 'thought experiment'. I'm well read on waste issues and there are plenty of other ways of approaching waste than burning it, such as a zero waste policy (which works TOWARDS zero waste without incineration, to the numpty who said there wasn't such a thing as 'zero waste') and source separated collection made mandatory (like in parts of Europe.

If we can make the wearing of seatbelts 'normal' and the smoking of tobacco unacceptable in enclosed public spaces in a very short space of time, I don't think it's impossible to increase recycling rates significantly.

And, in case anyone is interested, the work I'm doing at the moment on attitudes to recycling and recycling behaviour is for DEFRA, so I hope it's understood that I might know just a teeny bit more about the subject than the average person, and certainly more than the person who is cowardly hiding behind the pseudonym 'Micklegate', who comes across as not very informed.

Whilst I am not suggesting any impropriety, how is it possible with such a passionate interest and deep knowledge of the subject to do door to door surveys on behalf of DEFRA without the risk of influencing the results? I am always willing to answer genuine surveys, but would expect the person doing the task to be 'neutral'. With indepth knowledge it would be too easy to attribute meanings to answers that were not intended.

Totally agree, John Cossham is totally biased and him doing a survey is inappropriate in the extreme. Also can he back up his comment that I am 'not very informed'? It just seems needlessly nasty when all I pointed out was that people evidently disagree with you again and again given your election track record. Unless you can enlighten us 'WHY' else you stand? As for the 'hiding' under a pseudonym, try looking at virtually everyone else doing the same.

Some of these comments about this project seem to have missed the point.

There is a proposal at South Milford (14 miles south of York) and a real proposal to build a Waste Plant which will convert the residual wastes from Municipal Solid Waste to make the biofuel ethanol for the same quantity of waste as at Allerton for under £100 Million by a Recycling Company Mytum and Selby with their process engineering partners. It is understood that this site has got planning permission and permits. It is understood that all that is waiting to happen is for their funding to drop in. This to me sounds like the Answer to the Maiden's Prayer for North Yorkshire. This is just iover an hours drive away and they are waiting to start. No PFI no DEFRA opposition and a willing Company.
Let's put the North Yorks/York CCs project there and forget about the issues at Allerton once and for all.

Give the loss of AAA tonight, the sudden 'baffling' withdrawal of funding doesn't seem so mad or unexpected. The government will have known yesterday that this would happen. In short, there will be a period of cuts and austerity over the next 5 years as UK PLC is forced to get it's indebtedness into order.

America and France have been downgraded and their borrowing costs haven't been affected you might reason but you need to remember two important things. America and France have economies which are heavily based on manufacturing and neither of these countries are running above 500% GDP. The UK is 75% service sector and is well above 500% GDP. Further downgrades are inevitable because none of the world banks thinks or believes that the UK has any realistic chance of shedding it's debt this side of 2020.

If you are a house owner and you are heavily indebted, I would think about selling ASAP. The UK has been living on borrowed cash and borrowed time now for too long and there will shortly be a period of turmoil, a housing crash and for anywhere else other than the south east or London, a rather portly recession. This won't be instant but given the governments inability to control borrowing and public spending, and as said, further downgrades are inevitable. Ironically, the Tories, the party of capitalism and the free market, have sunk us by converting our economy to service sector. Anyway, another gripe for another day. This won't be the first funding withdrawal or the last. Don't expect HS2 anytime soon.

I was sad to hear on Radio York that James Alexander was furious not to have been told until an hour before the announcement by the government and that they didn't have the courtesy to contact him.In Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy the Vogon fleet only gave people two earth minutes! Perhaps he will now empathise a little more with the residents of Rawcliffe who might have had the Galtres festival on their doorstep and with those who were shocked by the plan to sell off the Union Terrace car park.Often ,like him, residents have also not had much notice of big decisions impacting on their lives.

Micklegate wrote:

Mulgrave wrote:

John Cossham wrote:

Micklegate wrote:

John Cossham wrote:
So, DEFRA now agree with the people who opposed the incinerator, saying it isn't necessary. What a mess, a huge mess.
Shame on NYCC and CoYC for approving this in the first place; shows they were wrong.
The answer is a zero-waste plan, going for a MUCH higher recycling rate.

I've been doing recycling surveys this week, door to door, and there are still significant numbers of people who don't recycle, and LOADS who don't compost. This situation can be improved. Put me in charge of waste and recycling and I'd get the amount of landfill down!

You won't in charge of anything though, time and time again you put yourself to the people on the ballot paper and they say no thanks.

Hahaha, you probably don't realise WHY I stand in Hull Road Ward in local elections. If you did, then you wouldn't have made this silly comment.

My comment was a 'thought experiment'. I'm well read on waste issues and there are plenty of other ways of approaching waste than burning it, such as a zero waste policy (which works TOWARDS zero waste without incineration, to the numpty who said there wasn't such a thing as 'zero waste') and source separated collection made mandatory (like in parts of Europe.

If we can make the wearing of seatbelts 'normal' and the smoking of tobacco unacceptable in enclosed public spaces in a very short space of time, I don't think it's impossible to increase recycling rates significantly.

And, in case anyone is interested, the work I'm doing at the moment on attitudes to recycling and recycling behaviour is for DEFRA, so I hope it's understood that I might know just a teeny bit more about the subject than the average person, and certainly more than the person who is cowardly hiding behind the pseudonym 'Micklegate', who comes across as not very informed.

Whilst I am not suggesting any impropriety, how is it possible with such a passionate interest and deep knowledge of the subject to do door to door surveys on behalf of DEFRA without the risk of influencing the results? I am always willing to answer genuine surveys, but would expect the person doing the task to be 'neutral'. With indepth knowledge it would be too easy to attribute meanings to answers that were not intended.

Totally agree, John Cossham is totally biased and him doing a survey is inappropriate in the extreme. Also can he back up his comment that I am 'not very informed'? It just seems needlessly nasty when all I pointed out was that people evidently disagree with you again and again given your election track record. Unless you can enlighten us 'WHY' else you stand? As for the 'hiding' under a pseudonym, try looking at virtually everyone else doing the same.

Hello 'Mulgrave' and 'Micklegate'. I'm happy to be completely open and honest, which is how I live my life (with half an eye on the future for if the Green Party ever gets the popular backing that the grey parties historically and currently have), and will answer your criticisms and queries. I have nothing to hide.

Firstly, the local elections. I stand in Hull Road Ward, a staunchly Labour Ward, and have only ever stood as a 'paper candidate' which is shorthand for someone who stands to give voters a choice, but doesn't put any resources into winning the seat, which if you understand local politics, would be virtually impossible in this ward. I consistently get between one in ten to one in twenty votes, so those people obviously think I either could do a better job than the other candidates, or my ideals, as a Green, fit theirs more than the capitalist nightmare parties. And I'm pleased to say that, on occasion, I've polled more votes than some of the 'bigger' parties, probably because local people know I care about my area more than some of the others who don't live in the ward.

Secondly, my work doing questionnaires is very well controlled. Everybody gets the same printed 'tick-box' questionnaire and therefore I cannot alter the way the information is delivered or collected. I could, I suppose, lie about what people say and write the wrong answers down, but I don't. I have no interest in misrepresenting what people say. And my being well informed about recycling is a good thing as if after the questionnaire, I'm asked about what sorts of plastic can be recycled, or whether you can compost in a concreted yard, I know the answers. 'Micklegate', whoever you are, if we knew who you were, it would be easy to find out exactly how well informed you are. I assume you haven't worked in the waste and recycling sector for 20 years, I assume you don't have a BSc (Hons) in a relevant subject and a dissertation on local authority composting. I assume you didn't start a highly successful Master Composter Programme and I'd love to hear you do a talk on peak oil, climate change and carbon footprints. Who are you? What are your qualifications and experience?

If I came across as 'nasty', I'm sorry, but I get tired of people, people 'hiding' behind a pseudonym, being derogatory in these comments, and, being only human, I might sink towards others' depths sometimes. I will try to remain polite and nice, for this is my true character. It's easy to be influenced by the company you mix in.

Finally, the 'hiding behind a pseudonym' stuff. Just because others are doing it, does it make it right? I think it would be far better if we all took responsibility for what we did, and wrote, and this is how I behave in all areas of my life. I aim to be an example.