The Secretary of State, Hazel Blears, is understood to have written to Nottinghamshire County Council informing them of the decision to call in Veolia’s application for a 200,000 tonne per annum waste incinerator at Rainworth, near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
This is widely seen as a vindication of the arguments put forward by local campaign group People Against Incineration (PAIN). PAIN has declared Veolia’s vision to be “The Wrong Site, and the Wrong Technology”.
The announcement, that a public inquiry is to hear arguments from PAIN and Newark and Sherwood District Council, and possibly others (such as Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust), brings together many who oppose the Sherwood Forest incinerator application for a range of reasons.
In a statement to the press, Sherwood MP Paddy Tipping said:
I know that people will welcome this decision. It provides objectors with the opportunity to argue their case before an independent inspector. This has always been a controversial issue. The proposed public inquiry is the most appropriate way to resolve it. Congratulations to all those who’ve been involved in the campaign.
Whatever the eventual result of the Public Inquiry, the delay creates the need to formulate a Plan B to comply with commitments to reduce sending discarded material, particularly biodegradable matter, to landfill.
This will test the ‘flexibility’ of Nottinghamshire’s Waste PFI contract with Veolia, and the recently signed Waste Partnership Agreement.
According to Shlomo Dowen, of PAIN’s Legal and Research Team:
This is the perfect time for Nottinghamshire County Council to work with the community to introduce weekly kitchen waste collections for anaerobic digestion (AD).
Support for PAIN’s position comes from the Environment Agency. In their recently released decision document for the proposed Sherwood Forest Incinerator (Permit) the Environment Agency calls upon:
Nottinghamshire County Council, as the waste disposal authority, working with Veolia as its contractor, to provide facilities for the segregation and composting of food waste to enable as much of this waste as possible to be recycled in this way.
The quote above is taken directly from page 119 (Annex 4: Consultee and Public Responses) of the Environment Agency’s Determination of an Application for a PPC Permit under the Pollution Prevention and Control (England and Wales) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000 No.1973), in response to the suggestion that kitchen waste which should be composted would instead be sent for incineration under Veolia’s current plans.
