The consultation is being run by Viridor – the Preferred Bidder for the South London Waste Partnership’s residual waste treatment contract. 

The comprehensive programme of community engagement will include newsletters delivered to 50,000 households in the vicinity of Beddington Lane, public exhibitions a freephone information line (0800 298 7040) and an innovative online engagement hub at www.viridor.co.uk/beddington-erf.

Households in Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton produce about 215,000 tonnes of residual waste (waste that has not been recycled or composted) each year.  At the moment, most of this waste is buried in expensive and environmentally unsustainable landfill.  The proposed ERF would instead use safe, tried and tested methods to treat the waste, extracting valuable electricity and, if viable, heat from it. 

Feedback received during the consultation period (which runs until 31 May 2012) will be taken into consideration by Viridor when preparing their planning application, which will be submitted to the London Borough of Sutton during the summer.

Once submitted, Sutton Council will carry out further statutory consultation with interested parties and the local community before officers make a recommendation to Sutton’s Development Control Committee whether to approve or reject the application. 

To find out more about the proposed development and get involved in the consultation, visit www.viridor.co.uk/beddington-erf

Once signed, the contract will ensure that from April 2014, up to 215,000 tonnes of ‘residual waste’ (rubbish that has not been sorted by residents for composting or recycling) that is generated every year by households in Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton will no longer be buried in expensive and environmentally unsustainable landfill sites.

Instead, if planning permission is achieved, the waste will be treated in a state-of-the-art Energy Recovery Facility which will use tried and tested methods to extract valuable electricity and, if viable, heat from it.

To achieve all of this, Viridor is proposing to build an Energy Recovery Facility on a plot of land just off Beddington Lane in the London Borough of Sutton. The new facility would be located right next to an existing 92-hectare landfill site, which it will replace. This landfill site is also operated by Viridor and is currently where the Partnership sends most of the residual waste collected from households in Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton.

Viridor’s proposal will be subject to a very detailed and public planning application process, which will include a thorough Environmental Impact Assessment considering issues around land use, design, traffic, air quality and sustainability. Residents in all four council areas will be able to contribute to the planning process in Sutton, which will give equal measure to the views of people in each borough.

The Beddington Lane landfill site, which receives up to 400,000 tonnes of waste every year, is expected to be full within the next 10 years. Once full, the plan is to restore the land to become part of a regional park. The new Energy Recovery Facility would make it possible to accelerate this work, which is already underway, and bring the restoration of the land forward.

Other benefits for the local Beddington community would include local investment, job creation (approximately 40 full time staff would be required to operate the new facility) and, subject to discussions with the planning authority, other local amenity improvements.

At the start of the procurement process back in May 2008, the Partnership made a pledge to residents that the new contract would put in place arrangements that were more environmentally friendly and cost-effective than landfill. That pledge has been kept:

• Treating residual waste in a modern Energy Recovery Facility is far more environmentally friendly than burying it in landfill sites: The contract with Viridor will see a significant reduction in CO2 emissions over landfill.

• The new residual waste treatment contract will be cheaper than landfill from day one. Over the 25-year lifetime of the contract it will save the four partner boroughs around £200 million by ensuring that strict Government-controlled limits on landfill waste are met, avoiding severe financial penalties in the process.

The proposed Energy Recovery Facility would be safe, robust and highly effective in treating the residual waste delivered to the site. It would be built by a highly experienced, Viridor-led consortium, which has already built many high quality plants across Europe and in the UK. Once built, the facility would be operated by Viridor; a respected company with decades of relevant experience, using tried and tested technologies. As with all facilities of this type, it would be closely monitored by the Environment Agency to ensure that it meets the incredibly strict emissions criteria set out in the European Union’s Waste Incineration Directive.

Councillor Phil Thomas, Chair of the South London Waste Partnership Joint Waste Committee, said: “Awarding Preferred Bidder status was a huge decision, but the Joint Waste Committee is confident that the right decision has been made: Viridor had the strongest bid when assessed against the evaluation criteria. It is now for the planning process to forensically study whether the proposal is appropriate for the Beddington area.

“The Energy Recovery Facility proposed by Viridor is an intelligent solution to a huge environmental and financial challenge. Of course it is important that we all continue to minimise the amount of waste we produce and then recycle and compost as much as we can. But a modern Energy Recovery Facility has an important role to play in ensuring that we can prevent even non-recyclable waste from ending up in landfill sites, costing both the environment and council tax payers dearly.”

Councillor Thomas continues: “I know that residents who live in the vicinity of the Beddington Lane site will have lots of questions around issues like traffic and emissions. We are committed to systematically working through these and a lot of effort will go into making sure everyone has the chance to have their say on these issues.”

As Preferred Bidder, Viridor will now enter into the final stage of the Procurement Process, ‘Financial Close’, where detailed information relating to the contract will be finalised and agreed with the Partnership. The contract should be awarded by August 2012.

WRG is the Partnership’s ‘Reserved Bidder’.

2010-11 Statement of Accounts
2010-11 Annual Governance Report
2010-11 Letter of Representation
2010-11 Conclusion of the Audit of the Accounts

If you require any further information on these accounts then please contact:

Jeremy Randall Head of Financial Services
Kingston Council
Telephone: 020 8547 5572
Email: jeremy.randall@rbk.kingston.gov.uk

Or write to:

Jeremy Randall
Head of Financial Services
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
Guildhall 2
Kingston upon Thames
KT1 1EU

The contract to manage these Civic Amenity sites and handle the waste brought to them is held by Environmental Waste Controls.  The contract was awarded and is managed by the South London Waste Partnership. 

The South London Waste Partnership provided Panorama with a statement, which the programme producers unfortunately chose not to feature in the broadcast.

The South London Waste Partnership takes its responsibilities of reusing, recycling and disposing of waste in a responsible and sustainable manner extremely seriously. 

The seven Reuse and Recycling Centres managed by Environmental Waste Controls (EWC) on behalf of the Partnership are amongst the highest performing in the country – fully audited figures show that 75% of the waste brought to these sites is re-used or recycled. 

Electrical waste brought to the sites is handled by an EWC sub-contractor, DHL.  Contractually, it is DHL’s responsibility to ensure that electrical waste is handled in accordance with WEEE regulations. 

The South London Waste Partnership is extremely concerned about the findings of this investigation and thank the Environmental Investigations Agency (EIA) and the BBC for bringing them to our attention.

The Partnership has acted quickly and decisively in responding to these allegations: we have launched a full and thorough investigation that will look in detail at the actions of all contractors and sub-contractors involved in the running of these sites.     

While this investigation is ongoing, all activities relating to the re-use of televisions deposited at the Partnership’s Reuse and Recycling Centres have been suspended (televisions left by residents are being sent for recycling rather than reuse until the matter is resolved).

Similarly decisive action will be taken against any companies that are found to have acted in contravention of regulations.

Figures obtained from WasteDataFlow^*(the national system used by local authorities to report waste data figures to government) reveal that all four boroughs appear in the top 12 out of the 135 authorities listed.

On average, well over three quarters of the waste brought to the HRRCs located within the South London Waste Partnership region is reused, recycled or composted. 

With an average recycling rate of 84.02% across its three HRRCs, Croydon Council appeared in fifth position in the table.  Kingston was in tenth position with a 79.42% average recycling rate closely followed by Sutton in eleventh (79.28%) and Merton in twelfth (79.16%).

The management of the HRRC sites in the four boroughs was awarded by the South London Waste Partnership to EWC (Environmental Waste Controls) in 2008.

Since then, a number of changes have been made to the way the sites are managed:

• A significant extension to the range of household waste that can recycled – on average each HRRC now has recycling bins for around 30 different recyclable materials
• Introduction of ‘meet and greet’ staff at the entrances to all HRRCs
• Training and incentivisation of EWC staff to encourage users of the sites to divert as much waste away from landfill as possible.

 Councillor Andrew Judge, Chair of the South London Waste Partnership Joint Committee, said: “Before the Partnership awarded the contract to EWC, the sites had an average recycling rate of just under 50 percent.  To have increased that to well over 75 per cent in just three years is a fantastic achievement and is testament to the hard work of EWC and those in the Partnership who are responsible for managing the contract.” 

^* The WasteDataFlow figures refer to the period April 2009 to March 2010.

Viridor and WRG have been invited to advance into the final round of ‘competitive dialogue’ meetings with the Partnership’s procurement team.  This final stage will allow the two remaining bidders to put the finishing touches to their proposals before they submit Final Tenders in the summer. 

The new contract being let by the Partnership is for the treatment of 200,000 tonnes of residual household waste every year that would otherwise be destined for landfill.  Continuing to send this waste to landfill is neither financially nor environmentally sustainable.

Strict procurement rules mean that the details of each bid must remain confidential while the procurement process is ongoing.  The Partnership hopes to able to make a public announcement regarding the chosen solution in early 2012. 

The South London Waste Partnership is made up of four councils (Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton) who are working together to provide improved, sustainable and more cost-effective waste management services to their residents.

The most effective way of achieving this is to stop waste from ending up in landfill sites and do something more innovative and environmentally sound with it instead.  The residual waste treatment contract currently being procured by the Partnership – along with continued progress on waste minimisation, recycling and composting fronts – will play a key role in ending the boroughs’ reliance on landfill.

Councillor Andrew Judge, Chair of the South London Waste Partnership Joint Committee, said: “This is a huge contract – both in terms of investment and in terms of its importance in allowing the four partner boroughs to meet their statutory targets around landfill waste reduction. 

“The Partnership has worked hard to whittle down the seven bidders who started the process back in 2009 to the two who now remain.  We are entering the final stage of procurement negotiations, confident that we will be able to deliver a waste treatment solution that is more cost-effective and environmentally sustainable than landfill.”

Ends.

On 21 October, Defra announced that PFI credits were being revoked from seven waste infrastructure projects, including the South London Waste Partnership.  It goes without saying that the Partnership was disappointed by this decision; but PFI funding was an option for the Partnership and not something it was entirely reliant on.

What has not been announced are any plans to relax the challenging landfill reduction targets, and associated increases in landfill tax, that councils across the country are expected to meet in the years to come.  The rising cost of landfill means that it will soon be cheaper to treat waste than to bury it in the ground.

So an important source of funding has been taken away, but the challenge facing us remains: we must find a more environmentally and economically sustainable alternative to landfill.

The Partnership has looked carefully at the impact of the withdrawal of PFI credits and has concluded that it remains well placed to meet this challenge. 

The Partnership was established with the key objective of making efficiency savings in the way the four Partner boroughs handle and treat their municipal waste.  With that firmly in mind, the Partnership’s negotiation team has been working hard with bidders over the last 14 months to ensure that the proposals being developed for new waste treatment facilities are affordable and provide best value, even without PFI credits.

The withdrawal of PFI funding does potentially allow for a more flexible contract structure.  The Partnership now intends to use this additional commercial freedom to its advantage and seek to secure even better value for money from the three bidders that remain in the competitive dialogue process.

The Partnership is confident that the current negotiations will result in a value-for-money solution to the challenge of preventing waste from ending up in landfill. 

WRG, Veolia and Viridor have been invited to further ‘refine’ their proposals of how they would treat up to 200,000 tonnes of residual household waste every year that would otherwise be destined for landfill.  Strict procurement rules mean that the details of each bid must remain confidential while the ‘competitive dialogue’ procurement process is ongoing.

The South London Waste Partnership is made up of four local councils (Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton) who are working together to provide improved, sustainable and more cost-effective waste management services to their residents.

The most effective way of achieving this is to stop waste from ending up in landfill sites and do something more innovative and environmentally sound with it instead.  The residual waste treatment contract currently being procured by the Partnership – along with continued progress on waste minimisation, recycling and composting fronts – will play a key role in ending our reliance on landfill.

Cormac Stokes, Chair of the South London Waste Partnership Management Group, said: “The three remaining bidders are proposing a range of innovative waste treatment solutions.  Further confidential negotiations are required between the Partnership’s Procurement Team and the bidders before further deselection of bids can take place.” 

The South London Waste Partnership Joint Waste Committee will meet in February 2011 to consider each bidder’s refined solutions and agree which bids should progress to the next stage.

Final tenders will be submitted in April 2011 with the Preferred Bidder announced in July 2011.  The Contract is due to be awarded in autumn 2011.

Resources from Waste, Viridor, Veolia and Waste Recycling Group have successfully made it through to the ‘Invitation to Submit Detailed Solutions’ (ISDS) stage of the South London Waste Partnership’s procurement process.  After through evaluations of the solutions proposed, two of the four will be chosen to submit ‘Final Tenders’ in January 2011 with the contract being awarded to the successful bidder in May 2011.

The South London Waste Partnership (SLWP) is a joint initiative between Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton councils.  The key objective for the SLWP is to stop household rubbish that is generated by residents of the four boroughs ending up in landfill sites.

For many years landfill has been recognised as being an environmentally unsustainable way of dealing with our waste, with rotting waste releasing climate-changing gasses.  Ever-increasing taxes being placed on landfill is also making it a financially prohibitive option for local authorities.

Councillor Colin Hall, Chair of the SLWP Joint Committee, said: “The SLWP is committed to encouraging residents of the four boroughs to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as they can.  We have already awarded major contracts for recycling and composting services and facilities that will help the four councils continue the progress being made in this area.  But after we’ve reduced, reused and recycled as much as we can, it is inevitable that there is going to be some waste left over.

“There are environmental and financial reasons why we cannot continue to bury this waste in landfill.  We must do something more innovative and sustainable with it and that’s what this latest contract is all about: Putting in place modern and technically-advanced waste treatment facilities that will come into operation in 2014 and allow us to finally end our reliance on landfill.”

Strict procurement rules mean that the SLWP must remain technology-neutral during the tendering process.  But the Partnership has made it clear that if any bidder proposes to use thermal treatment, they must allow for the recovery of energy from waste and seek to provide efficient heat off-take for local use.  All four boroughs are firmly against poor-performing, outdated technologies such as old-fashioned mass-burn incineration, which are visually intrusive and release high levels of noxious emissions.

The sites under consideration are:

• Land west of Hawkhurst Road, Croydon
• Open area of land adjacent to Chessington Garden Centre, Kingston
• Land to the south of Silverglade Business Park, Kingston
• Land at the Hogsmill Valley, Kingston
• Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium, Merton
• Former gravel extraction works sites (the old Cemex site), Beddington Farmlands, Sutton
• Wandle Valley Trading Estate, Hackbridge, Sutton
• Land to the north of Jessop’s Way, Beddington, Sutton

These eight sites are ‘additional sites’ that were put forward by residents, land owners and waste operators during a previous stage of consultation which took place between July and October 2009.

The suitability of these eight additional sites has been assessed using a set of robust criteria that takes into consideration issues such as flood risk, traffic impacts and visual intrusion and gives a score to each site.  All eight sites scored relatively poorly, when compared with the 28 sites that were shorlisted in the previous stage of the consutlation in 2009.  This indicates that, from a planning perspective, there would be obstacles to them being used for waste management purposes.

Residents and other interested parties are now being asked for their views on the assessments of these eight sites and their suitability for waste management purposes.

Councillor Simon James, Chair of the South London Waste Plan Member Working Group, said: “The sites have scored relatively poorly against the assessment criteria and so are clearly not sites we would seek to include in the Waste Plan.  But it is still important that we seek the views of residents and other interested parties to make sure that we have investigated all of the options fully – just like we did with the 112 sites that scored poorly in the previous consultation stage.  It is critically important that the South London Waste Plan is robust and reflects the views of local people, so we do not want to leave a stone unturned.”

The consultation will run from 8 February until 22 March.  Questionnaires and consultation materials are available online at:

http://southlondonwasteplan.limehouse.co.uk

Alternatively, the consultation documents are available in libraries, council main receptions or by contacting Emma Smyth, Waste Planning Project Manager:

Tel: 020 8547 5375

Email: southlondonwasteplan@rbk.kingston.gov.uk

To accommodate this extra phase of consultation, the final version of the South London Waste Plan is now due to be published in the autumn of 2010.  It will then be submitted to the Secretary of State for examination by an independent planning inspector.