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Tax is a burning issue in Leeds incinerator debate
It is a question being fiercely debated and will be a key issue for some people in this year’s local elections – why should Leeds City Council build an incinerator?
The answer according to the councillor given the job of helping to drive the project forward is simple – the city can’t afford not to.
Coun Mark Dobson, executive member for environmental services, insists bald economic facts support the council’s proposal for an incinerator in Cross Green that could burn up to 180,000 tonnes of rubbish – predominantly household refuse – each year.
The council currently pays over £11m a year in landfill tax to dump waste from the city’s back wheelie bins – a figure expected to rise to about £16m over the next two years as the tax increases.
Coun Dobson argues that by burning rather than burying household refuse, the council will save up to £200m over the lifetime of the 25-year Private Finance Initiative contract it intends to sign with Veolia Environmental Services, its preferred bidder to build and operate the plant.
He said: “Do people think it’s reasonable to bury thousands of tonnes of rubbish and pay £16m in tax for the privilege? It’s unsuitable environmentally and – given our finances – economically.”
Coun Dobson is also green to emphasise the green credential of the incinerator – officially called an Energy Recovery Facility. It will create enough electricity to power 20,000 homes and include a facility for removing recyclable material before incineration.
He said: “We are looking to protect the city’s finances and there will be an environmental upside as well.”
He added that the plant would be highly regulated and monitored by the Environment Agency, which he hoped would allay some people’s fears that the plant could be harmful to health.
A planning application for the incinerator will be submitted this summer and will face opposition.
Sarah Covell, of the No Incinerator Leeds group, said: “The council could find itself locked into a contract for out-dated technology and a plant that has to burn 180,000 tonnes of waste.
“To hit that figure they may well end up burning waste that could be recycled.
“There are other technologies and other ways of reducing the tonnage sent to landfill. Food waste recycling and glass recycling are just two ways of reducing the amount of refuse we dump.”
She said many people in east Leeds felt let down by the political process.
She said: “We feel we have been hardest hit by council cuts and now they have the audacity to want to put an incinerator in our area. We feel we have been let down by all our councillors.”
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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Comments
There are 9 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
Paul Hu
Friday, February 24, 2012 at 01:51 PMIsn't this a strange posting bearing in mind that the Allerton proposal has just bitten the dust in the York City and North Yorkshire County Council proposal. This proposal is equally daft for the same logic expounded in that offering. Compared to the money proposed to be spent on the unwanted Allerton incineration this one is a little lower, but why do we need it? This reckless expenditure the Coucil Tax Payers money cannot be justified. There is a proposal about to be built a few miles away at South Milford which will more than meet the Leeds requirement. When this proposal was first lauded in from of invitees to consider bidding it was already known by the advising Consultants to Leeds that a proposak for a complete alternative was available for turning the waste into ethanol. This was though never ever going to be considered for that plant because even though it would have been costed at barely a quarter of the current proposition the Consultants and Advisors had already made their minds up that incineration was the proposed outcome. Now a few years later the outcome of the planning rebuff and the objections of the public - the Council Tax Payers and financiers to the project - have spoken up and they should now know that they can roundly stopped the project. Now we hear that at South Milford (which is barely 15 miles or so south of York City) Mytum and Selby has proposed developing the John Smiths Old Maltings Site into a Bioethanol plant - it has been given the name the Maltings Organic Treatment Facility - and it has Full Planning Permission whereby it will be allowed to convert the residual waste from the area and make the transportation fuel Ethanol which can be blended with petrol. This proposal has been gathering momentum recently following a delay in closing financing which was the consequence of the current banking crisis when the original financing bank went bankrupt. Now we hear that there are a group of well-healed investors willing to place the capital cost up (the £80 Million) to make this happen. For local Leeds activists who have garnered support against the Allerton Incineration plant the size of the Maltings Organic Facility is identical to that proposed by Leeds City Council. Furthermore it is also understood that Mytum and Selby have also set out a bigger plan to develop a second facility in Goole to do the same procedures with the same company in partnership to make Biobutanol for transport uses. That plant will be treating we hear over 700,000 tonnes of residual waste per year and will make around up to 150 Million litres of biofuels in a proposed cost of less than £120130 million. As Mytum and Selby are a local company and has this intuitive and drive to innovate what is it about them that is different? Well as it is also reported elsewhere when they were doing their research they went around Europe looking at the best solution for treating waste and their conclusion was that making ethanol was by far the best potential as it reduced the quantity of waste being left to near zero and that even then that final 5% could be used as a filler in concrete. So what is this development? I have looked at their web site and came across their planning document from 2009 and it is one that is totally enclosed and contained in water - no chimneys, no smoke, no emissions to the atmosphere. Indeed their proposal followed a document which was widely published in the Chemical Engineers institute in 2008 which showed what the proposal was all about. Now I read that the Company working with them has started work on similar schemes in Holland Malta VietNam the Arabian Gulf in the USA and Canada as well as in Argentina and Israel. Why? Simply because this is the best proposal on offer to provide a real cost effective and environmentally acceptable solution to our waste problems. It is better than all the current choices around and it is being rolled out in a big way from the EU throughout the World. Why then don't we all do in Yorkshire what really needs to happen and that is stop the Leeds incineration project. We do not need the one in Leeds and neither do we need the one Allerton as Mytum and Selby’s initiative make that proposal redundant. Councillors and Councils stop this nonsense and let’s send the waste to South Milford down the road to this facility. We would save at least £1000 Million straight away in avoiding these two. Importantly though this is hard-earned money of Torkshire people - you and me - and we do not want this built here. Leeds City Council take note, there is already a solution and it awaits you.
S A Covell
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 01:53 PMNobody involved in the anti incinerator campaign has ever suggested that Leeds continue to send its waste to landfill!.......... That is scaremongering on the part of Clr Dobson and co. No2 Incinerator and many other groups oppose the building of this plant because we along with many others are convinced that the burning of RESIDUAL WASTE is wrong. What is classed as residual is very flexible and we will believe lead to perfectly recyclable materials being burnt in order for the plant to run at full (one might say optimum) capacity. Running full is what Veolia has calculated it’s not unsubstantial profit margins on. This project will be financed by the citizens of Leeds for 25 years. Children born today will be paying for the decisions made by this council when they are adults. 25 years ago nobody would have dreamed of mobile computers so small they fit in a pocket, satellite navigation that can guide you anywhere, perhaps even the possibility of countries going bankrupt because of the greed and misjudgement of bankers would have raised a quizzical eye of dis belief! In a nutshell the council have committed us the ratepayers to a technology that will quickly age and become outdated. 25 years ago no domestic waste was much recycled; today it is hovering around 40%. It would be a brave person to say these figures will not increase substantially further...........but Leeds an allegedly forward thinking an innovative city will still be using an incinerator to burn what could be recycled and reused......... a waste of money particularly when financed by private finance initiative money and a waste of the environments diminishing resources. The No2 Incinerator campaigners are not as some believe a set of Nimbyist tree huggers, but people who genuinely care about the community of Leeds and wish the best for its future.
Chris R
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 08:36 PMMark Paul: where in North Leeds would you suggest that an incinerator could be built!!! Cross Green is an industrial site, it has been for many many years and is ideally suited for this type of construction. I am tired of hearing people with their made up stories about how damaging this incinerator will be!!!! well maybe it will be less damaging than the millions of tons of landfill that we produce year on year!! i bet the majority of people who are complaining about this potential energy boosting, job creating, landfill reducing building, have never recycled a thing in their lives, but have contributed plenty to landfill.... Get it built, create jobs, boost the economy and produce electricity... its a win win situation.
steves.job
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 08:28 PMIf you take a map of the motorway network Mark Paul, and lay it over a map of Leeds, you'll see why the vast majority of these sorts of things are built innear southeast Leeds.
Mark Paul
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 06:03 PMIf it is so clean, why dont they build a similar one in North Leeds, somewhere like moortown. The answer is because the south is where the rich dump all their dirt.
leedsls27
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 06:02 PMI agree with the comment raised in post 3. There are far too many people that ignore their own responsibility to recycle but then moan when there's the possibility of an incinerator appearing on their doorstep. If, instead of dumping everything in the black bin, people got into the habit of using their green and brown bins, and also made a weekly trip to the local bottle bank, then the urgent and pressing need for an incinerator project to take the weight off landfill might well not be the issue it currently is. I have neighbours that don't even have green or brown bins because they can't be bothered, I have people in my own household that would rather just dump things in the trash than rinse it out and use the recycle bin and until these attitudes are changed then the problem will always remain. Personally I would make it an enforceable responsibility via punitive council charges to recycle, incentives don't seem to work so take the alternative route.
steves.job
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 04:39 PMCall me cynical but i bet the thousands who would use a foodglass recycling service would be far outweighed by the hundreds of thousands that would just continue to lazily dump all their rubbish in the black bin. My favourite line from this story is the comment from the No Incinerator Leeds rep who seems to think that 180,000 tonnes of rubbish is some sort of target that they will have to burn each year - this facility would have the capacityability to burn that much, doesn't mean they will. And yes Mark Paul, i doubt the council tax bills will come down either, but at least they could spend the money saved on things like care for the elderly?
RichC
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 04:28 PMThey won't save £11m a year, that will be used to pay Veolia back for building and running the plant. That's what a PFI scheme is. The plant will drastically reduce waste going to landfill and also create construction and running jobs. You won't get toxins dumped on you either as the gases emitted from these plants are extremely clean. Probably a lot cleaner than most of the other stuff getting pumped into the air around Cross Green!!!
Mark Paul
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 03:17 PMWhat will they do with the £11 million a year, reduce council tax ? Nope thought not, so we pay the same, yet get toxins dumped on us as well, a double blow.
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