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Notes from the Mayor
Frank Branston's monthly column for BedfordToday and the Times & Citizen
The Times and Citizen's front page headline last week about the problems of waste recycling was timely – but told only half the story.
The late county council, which was the waste recycling authority, was working on something called the Bedford Energy and Recycling project (BeAR) for a number of years.
The county chose Rookery Pit near Stewartby for an incineration plant which would take the waste of the three councils, now all unitary authorities, and sell off any surplus.
We would be paying for it over 25 years, after which it would be belong to the councils.
The district councils – Borough, Central Bedfordshire and Luton – were bystanders for most of that time because the county jealously guarded its remit.
It was only a few months before the county was due to shut up shop that the district councils suddenly came under pressure from the county to sign up to BeAR, being told that if we did not do so quickly we would lose Private Finance Initiative (PFI) credits to allow us to build our own incineration plant.
That would mean we would have to continue to use landfill and would be subject to swingeing fines for doing so.
Whenever I am told that I must do something very quickly and without looking for alternatives I get twitchy and I did so in this case, but the deadline was so close and the threat of fines so dire that reluctantly I went along with the other two councils and signed up to it.
It was only after we had signed up that we started getting the bad news.
One was that the county council had, astonishingly, neglected to get an option on the part of Rookery Pit we would require.
Then another surprise was sprung on us. A company called Covanta wanted to build a huge plant to take not only our waste, but also that of neighbouring Buckinghamshire, and it was in negotiation with O & H properties which owns Rookery.
All this confirmed my distrust of the project and I wasn't the only one.
The Government was unhappy about Bedfordshire's financial projections and had ordered a delay.
Officers were due to meet Treasury officials last week, but the silence since then suggests the possibility of more delay.
Meanwhile, I have been gathering more information about alternatives and, despite what I was told by supporters of BeAR, they do exist.
Even within the county there is an efficient privately-owned incinerator which could take all or most of our waste and there are other schemes using non-incineration techniques in Cambs, Milton Keynes and Northants.
There are also smaller, less intrusive
incineration plants available which could meet the borough's needs as well as providing heat and power to nearby residential and commercial premises.
A major problem is that we were bounced into signing up to BeAR with Central Bedfordshire and Luton and unless we all decide to turn our back on the BeAR, disentangling ourselves will prove difficult. With the threat of those heavy fines hanging over us we need to deliver something which reduces the waste we put in landfill as soon as possible.
The good news is that alternatives are available and they could be brought into operation sooner than the BeAR project saving the borough's taxpayers a lot of money. We must keep our options open.
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Weather for Bedford
Monday 13 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 5 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North west
