Friends of the Earth press release
For immediate release: Thursday 1 October 2009
The giant waste company Veolia Environmental Services today lost its High Court
bid to keep details of its £850 million waste management contract with
Nottinghamshire County Council secret from local residents [1]. This is the
third time that information about the French-owned company’s activities has been
forcibly made public [2]. The judgment sets an important precedent for local
authorities with immediate impacts for other councils around the country [3].
Veolia asked for the High Court to judicially review Nottinghamshire County
Council’s decision to release details of its multi-million pound waste
management contract – including invoices paid by the local council – following a
request by local resident and waste campaigner Shlomo Dowen, of People Against
Incineration (PAIN), under local authority audit laws [4]. Veolia had previously
obtained an interim injunction to prevent publication until the case could be
heard.
Mr Dowen was represented by lawyers from Friends of the Earth’s Rights and
Justice Centre at the Judicial Review, which was heard last month.
Information in the contract and the invoices will show how much money Veolia is
charging the local council for each method of waste treatment, such as landfill,
incineration, recycling and composting, and will help show whether or not the
local authority is getting value for money.
Shlomo Dowen said:
“This decision, which is clearly the right one, strengthens our right to see how
public money is spent buying public services from large corporations. I am not
convinced that Nottinghamshire Council is getting best value for our money – now
I will be in a better position to investigate those suspicions.”
Friends of the Earth’s Head of Legal and Mr Dowen’s lawyer, Phil Michaels, said:
“This is a tremendous victory for freedom of information and the residents of
Nottingham. Veolia must come clean about its waste disposal contract and allow
council tax payers to see how vast sums of their money is being spent, and how
their rubbish is being disposed of.”
Mr Dowen has already accessed some information from the Council and has asked
the District Auditor to investigate amount of money it is charging
Nottinghamshire’s County Council in respect of landfill tax.
Veolia is also embroiled in another controversy with Nottinghamshire County
Council over its plans to build an incinerator on a former colliery site in
Sherwood Forest. The company claims that local waste levels are expected to rise
significantly in the coming years – a fact hotly disputed by PAIN, who point to
evidence that Nottinghamshire’s waste levels have actually fallen [5].
Veolia has said it will not be appealing today’s judgement.
ENDS
Notes:
1. The Judicial Review was heard on 25-26 August 2009
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/secret_waste_contract_25082009.html
.
2. In the past two years information about Veolia’s waste contracts with local
authorities has twice been ordered to be released following complaints to the
Information Commissioner. In April last year, following a formal complaint by a
Friends of the Earth local group, the Information Commissioner ordered South
Down Waste Services, a subsidiary of Veolia, to release information about its
Newhaven incinerator. He ruled that a private waste management company that has
a contract with a local authority is required to make environmental information
public because it is classed the same as a public authority under the
Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/waste_companies_must_open_02042008.
html. In another case in November 2007, the Information Commissioner ordered
East Sussex County Council to make public its £1 billion integrated waste
management contract with Veolia despite protestations that the contract was
commercially confidential.
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/decisionnotices/2007/fer_0099394.pdf
3. Friends of the Earth is aware of a number of authorities that have received
similar requests for information and are waiting for the outcome of this case
before deciding whether to release the information requested by local electors.
4. Mr Dowen asked for the information under the Audit Commission Act 1998.
That law provides members of the public with legal rights of access to all
contracts, books, bills, and accounts of a public authority for a 20 working day
period each year so that they can participate in the local audit process. This
is a unique right of access to information that goes considerably beyond rights
of access under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 – in large part because it
is not subject to any commercial confidentiality exemptions.
5. Hearings for the Public Inquiry into the proposed Sherwood Forest
Incinerator will begin on 6th October 2009 in Rainworth, near Mansfield. These
hearings are expected to last for three weeks. People against Incineration is
joined at the Inquiry by Newark and Sherwood District Council and Notts Wildlife
Trust who also oppose Veolia’s incinerator plans.
6. Friends of the Earth believes the environment is for everyone. We want a
healthy planet and a good quality of life for all those who live on it. We
inspire people to act together for a thriving environment. For further
information visit www.foe.co.uk.
Congratulations Shlomo, and Friends of The Earth. This is an important development which should end the secrecy mentality associated with PFI EfW. I look forward to reading your findings from the waste management contract.
One questionable aspect is the assumed increased waste arisings when we all know that there are many factors tending to lower these figures with time. Of course, the plan might be to widen the collection area due to a shortfall in EfW sites available.
Well done indeed! This is a major break through, and could help us in Rugby!! Cemex are now in “private” talks/negotiations with Warwickshire County Council and Waste Partnership as they try to build a 500,000 tonne a year WASTE PROCESSING PLANT in Southam or in Rugby to CHEAPLY FUEL their giant unlawful CO-INCINERATOR see http://www.rugbytown.org for details. In the Rugby Cement case the Environment Agency withheld all the documents about the environmental, air quality and health impacts of the cement plant, that was built in co-operation with Warwicks CC in contravention of the EIA Directive, and operated in co-operation with the EA in contravention of the IPPC Directive. When we became involved in a Judicial Review false/misleading information was given to the House of Lords about the cement co-incinerator itself and then later on about me personally in order for the government (Treasury and Environment Agency) to claim over £100,000 costs against me. In so doing they breached the AARHUS Convention and Public Participation Directive, and all this based on false and misleading information supplied to the Lords. No one is allowed to say “they lied in court”, so we have to say ” they misdirected the five Law Lords”, and this is now the subject of an investigation.
The Environment Agency’s legal team (endorsed by the Treasury’s Erol Mertcan, who signed up to it even though he did not know a thing about any of it) made inaccurate and misleading claims about me personally, obviously without any evidence for the sworn “fairy tales” they presented as “fact!” They also said that NO – ONE in Rugby or in the WHOLE of the UK is concerned about CO-INCINERATOR emissions and health effects – not in Rugby or elsewhere. They said that “no-one in Rugby was prepared to take on the case”, but they never asked even ONE of the 60,000 Rugby residents. They said that Mrs P is “all alone, carrying out a private and personal campaign and vendetta of NO public interest and importance.”
Surely it is a criminal offence to mislead the courts, and even more so the House of Lords? The Agency and Treasury use this manner of bullying and intimidation to frighten people and to make any truthful out spoken person into a wreck – homeless, ill, and bankrupt – so they can get away with environmental crimes. They hide the true evidence and facts, from the public, and even in the courts and give false witness in order to gain money. Is this not fraud? Off with their heads I say!!
WELL DONE SHLOMO ! You have achieved so much! Let’s hope this can now be applied to Warwickshire County Council, the Environment Agency and the “partners” in the waste management for burning at the (unlawful) Cemex co-incinerator.