The only TWO options are the SIX options they really considered!

 When are two options not really two options? Well when Derby City Council and Derbyshire County Council are involved it is usually when the councils are claiming to the public there are only two options to be considered for the controversial Sinfin incinerator - the Derby and Derbyshire Waste Treatment Centre on Sinfin Lane in Derby. 

The councils claimed as follows in November 2021.

"Cabinet members at Derby City Council and Derbyshire County Council will be asked to approve a recommendation to develop a business case for the future of the waste treatment facility in Sinfin at their respective Council Cabinet meetings later today.

The business case compares two options:

•            To rectify and use the facility and,

•            To close the facility and dispose of the councils’ waste using a third party.

The business case will be developed over the next few months. Once complete, both councils will reconvene to review and decide how to proceed."

So it was fix it and use it, or dump it. No more than that, no suggestion that there was a raft of alternative options! options that could be considered as an alternative for the site in Sinfin Lane. The reality however was rather different to the picture the councils painted to the public back in November 2021 when they were considering the future of the site. 

Now us mere resident nobodies were excluded from the meetings of the council cabinets and had at the time no access to the cabinet documents or in the case of Derby City also access to the documents provided to the councils Executive Scrutiny Board which met the day before the cabinet meetings in question. Obviously they had nothing to hide being so open and transparent as this - it is perfectly normal to hide all the documents on the subject from residents because come on there are two options being considered, the councils said so and so that must be true right?

WRONG!

 THERE WERE SIX OPTIONS THAT WERE BEING CONSIDERED !

Clearly in the interests of being open and transparent the councils decided to only tell the public they were considering TWO options. Maybe the councils thought that the public could not handle all this information that they would face so wanted to protect the public from this - or maybe they just set out to mislead the public into thinking there were only two options being considered!

As a resident of Derby and also a member of the Sinfin plants Community Liaison Group (CLG) personally I consider that the councils set out to mislead the public when issuing their statements because the councils clearly want to pitch repairing and using the plant - which just so happens to tick all of the boxes in the strategic aims against complete closure which ticked almost none of the boxes. We all know that it is very easy to formulate a set of tests to gain the result you want which in my view is why it was important for the councils to keep the other options hidden from the public because some of them could be considered to be better options in the public eye than the councils want - and obviously that would never do!

A Freedom of Information / Environmental Information request was submitted in November 2021 for the documents from the meeting to Derby City Council. The council managed to fob off my request for far longer than is usually considered acceptable by blaming issues around work levels at the council department in question. Finally they had to issue the documents to me - although in a redacted state there was enough left un redacted for readers to identify that unlike the claimed two options considered there were actually SIX options being considered. Ranging from full repair to closure but also including use of specific sections of the plant to produce refuse derived fuel or to act as a waste transfer site and also even an option considering leasing or selling the site off to a third party.

So what could possibly be the reason for the councils only telling the public there were two options being considered? Surely from past experience they would know that some members of the public would cast their eye over the situation and even make a Freedom Of Information request - FOI or its Environmental brother the EIR. It is not clear why someone somewhere decided to make a public statement that they were to consider two options because surely it would be better to admit to six options while saying two would be considered further. By doing so they would be open and transparent and this would encourage public trust.

So obviously I had to make a request to Derby City Council for the documents from the November 2021 Scrutiny Board meeting and Council Cabinet meetings which took place in an attempt to help the councils to be open and transparent because clearly it is something they struggle with! So that is where it became clear scattered between the heavily redacted texts that there was a broader series of options.

Option ONE was to fix and use the full plant - but on that option the councils redacted all the text relating to RISK 

Being open and transparent the councils clearly have nothing to hide by errr hiding all the risks being considered!

We know that even if "fixed" the inefficient plant which is considered a disposal plant at the bottom of the waste hierarchy will be even worse from an efficiency perspective because the document tells us this!

Also strangely no acknowledgement of fly related issues in the community which vanished when the plant was closed and cleaned.

Option TWO was a secret option ssshhhh dont tell the public! the proposal in this case was to use the front end of the plant which was the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) and the Mechanical Biological Treatment section (MBT) to create a refuse derived fuel (RDF) to be burnt off site. No acknowledgement of fly related issues on the community which vanished when the plant was closed and cleaned. No reference to odour related objections. 

Option THREE was another secret option ssshhhh dont tell the public! the proposal in this case was to only use the MRF as a "dirty" MRF to extract some recyclables from the waste before shredding the waste and sending it out as an RDF fuel to be burnt off site. No acknowledgement of fly related issues in the community which vanished when the plant was closed and cleaned. Strangely refers to odour issues - which it strangely did not refer to in option two.

Option FOUR was another secret option ssshhhh dont tell the public! the proposal in this case was to use the site as a waste transfer station where the waste would be bulked up and not treated on site before being sent for disposal elsewhere. No acknowledgement of fly related issues in the community which vanished when the plant was closed and cleaned.

Option FIVE is the option of closure of the plant - the residents all time favourite option but sadly it appears not the councils favourite option but one which is a useful tool for pushing through the councils favoured option of fixing and using the plant. This option which almost without fail successfully gives the answer NO to the councils selected strategic aims plays a key part in the councils consideration as it is the only other option they told the public about!

Option SIX was the final ssshhhh secret option dont tell the public! the proposal in this case was to sell or lease the plant to the private market. The document indicates that soft marketing along those lines did not turn up any interested parties in the purchase or lease of the plant.

 Maybe the fact that nobody is interested should be taken on board by the councils when considering if they themselves should attempt to fix and use the plant!

The councils in their documents go on to point score options 1-5 in relation to strategic fit. They do not consider option 6 (sale or lease) as they conclude it is not a likely option - considering no parties came forward via soft marketing.

The point scoring was as follows

We can see from the strategic fit criteria that as expected repair and use is ranked 1st compared to closure as ranked joint 4th.

It is not possible to judge the councils approach to the options financial fit because that section of the documents has a sponsorship deal with a redaction pen company and so it is not possible currently to understand the costs involved in relation to the SIX sorry TWO options the councils told the public they were considering. 

The councils are going through the motions attempting to convince the public they are considering long term closure of the site while running up ever higher multi million pound maintenance bills and considering the out of date plant at the bottom of the waste hierarchy against a joint waste strategy that will be out of date in 2026.

Surely they would not invest heavily in old technology that has been shown to be even less efficient than planned and unable to meet the requirements of the current joint waste contract never mind the expected efficiency you would expect of a future waste strategy that works to head towards net zero! 

©SIMON BACON 2022

 

How much can you spend on a closed waste plant? erm MILLIONS!

 August 2019 was a great month for residents in Derby UK and especially those in the Sinfin, Normanton and Osmaston wards of the city because it was the month the councils of Derby and Derbyshire FINALLY pulled the plug on the controversial waste gasification incineration plant on Sinfin Lane in Sinfin, Derby. Constructed and commissioned by Resource Recovery Solutions Derbyshire Ltd - a joint venture by Renewi and Interserve as part of a long term residual waste contract the wheels fell off the project when the plant never reached the end of commissioning. The councils pulling the plug shortly led to RRS- Resource Recovery Solutions Derbyshire Ltd falling into administration which is where it stays.

Shortly after the plant closed conveniently for some the councils awarded a contract to Renewi UK Services Ltd. This included clearing the Sinfin Lane site of waste, maintaining the equipment on site, organising tests and putting the equipment to bed while keeping the lights on! The stack glows like Mount Doom in the hours of darkness for example. 

One of my previous blog posts places focus on a report from October 2019 in relation to some of the issues with the plant itself which can be read here

  http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-sinfin-incinerator-has-more-than.html 

Obviously the works carried out by Renewi UK Services Ltd to clear the site of waste and to then clean down and put the plant to bed was going to cost some money as was carrying out tests on the sites equipment to make judgements on it later. But just how much the councils were going to cough up was not clear so it was time to do some digging. We all like a dig about and why not when its council tax being spent! 

My first investigation was to submit an EIR or to use it's full name a Environmental Information Request to Derby City Council. I dont have a good relationship with the council department that handles such requests as I have now taken them to the Information Commissioner on a number of occasions but in this case they responded pretty clearly.

I asked Derby City Council how much money they had spent on the Derby and Derbyshire Waste Treatment Centre on Sinfin Lane Derby. That is the posh name for the Sinfin incinerator and the requested time period was from closure in August 2019 to the end of September 2021 in an attempt to gather a good two years worth of figures as the plant closed in the August of 2019 there would be some time before costs kicked in.

So what did we learn? Well in that period Derby City Council spent an eye watering £6,211,972 !

That meant I then had to ask the same question to Derbyshire County Council who are in partnership  with Derby City via an Inter Authority Agreement. As part of that agreement all costs are split based on a default allocation. In this case Derby City pays 26.6% of the costs and Derbyshire County Council pays 73.4%. 

So what did we learn from the same question when put to Derbyshire County Council? 

Well we learnt from Derbyshire County Council that in the same period they splashed their council tax payers cash to the tune of £19,623,280 which is an eye watering amount for a waste plant site that is simply being cleared, cleaned, preserved and checked over and part of all that includes keeping the power on - and for anyone that knows the site its lit up like a Christmas tree every night of the year! 

So between them the councils spent in that period £25,835,252 - Nearly £26 MILLION to clean, maintain and keep the lights on at a closed waste facility. So that includes £895,989 spent just on electricity at the site which formed part of the payment to Renewi UK Services Ltd, Renewi formed the bulk of the spend at the site over the period in question. How can you spend close to £26 million in just over two years when your not even fixing the facility?

The councils want us to believe that this large cost will be knocked off the final fair value for the site when they come to an agreement with those with an interest in the site - such as the administrators of Resource Recovery Solutions Derbyshire Ltd and the hedge fund that has now taken on the debt owed to the set of banks that previously funded the actual construction of the waste disposal plant. 

Outside of the council bubble nobody thinks anything will be saved from this long term maintenance when it comes to deciding a fair value, it being all hot air - which being closed is one thing the Sinfin incinerator does not produce - THANKFULLY! 

©SIMON BACON 2022

The brown bin charge is dead! Long live free recycling!

The brown bin recycling charge has been binned in the city of Derby UK!

Turning the tide of charges for garden waste collection which is gradually crippling recycling in the UK

 (as recycling is based on weight and garden waste is a heavy component of any recycling scheme)
 

The Conservative council which was voted into power in the May local election put forward in their election manifesto a return to a free collection.

Prior to this the poor residents of the city had to pay £40 for the service which didn't even last all year!

Back in 2012/13 the council collected almost 20,000 tonnes of garden and food waste which was sent for in vessel composting outside of the city via a free service.

Fast forward to 2017/18 and that tonnage had shrunk to less that 4,400 tonnes of waste composted which was clearly linked to not just the £40 charge but also the fact food waste was no longer accepted and the service was restricted to specific 32 weeks of the year.
 

The charge had devastated the recycling rate at Derby City Council and it is now hoped this will help recycling turn a corner in the city.
 

The return of food waste collections in with the garden waste collection over the full 52 week year takes us back in a positive direction which was previously removed because food waste cannot be processed in a charged for service due to government regulation.
 

Recent residual waste surveys carried out in the city by the council identified that a massive 44% of waste gathered in the cities residual waste bins was garden and food waste.

In 2017/18 the city paid just £31.53 per tonne for its garden waste to be composted in an in vessel process at Ashbourne in Derbyshire.

This compares to the same waste entering the Resource Recovery Solutions residual waste contract where total contract waste costs for 2017/18 were roughly £91.57 per tonne -
a difference of around £60.
A return to a recycling rate of 20,000 tonnes could save the council over £900,000 per year! the council could save a great deal more if it diverted the 44% of compostable garden and food waste from the residual waste bin into the brown composting bin.
Well it could but there is a catch !

Currently the residual waste is sent to be burnt in a D10 disposal gasification incineration plant in Sinfin, Derby.
The council is paying a set fee of £25 million towards the plants construction - which is hopelessly behind schedule.
The less waste that the council sends to that plant the more per tonne fee that becomes when you add the cost to the per tonne charge the council will pay.
The council has contractually agreed to send waste of specific characteristics to be burnt in Sinfin and that includes an agreement to supply waste of a minimum biodegradable content - along with other specific requirements.
The following statement from the brown bin cabinet document shows how the incineration plant contract has its claws into the garden waste recycling project.

Any reduction in biodegradable content sent by the council to the Sinfin Lane plant in Derby will be looked on in a bad way by the operator of the residual waste contract - Resource Recovery Solutions (Derbyshire) or as we know them RRS because in a twist they have been awarded ROCs - Renewable Obligation Certificates for electricity generated from the burning of the biodegradable waste - ROCs have a value and RRS will be able to bank them!
Paying a government bung for burning such waste in an inefficient disposal plant basically rewards FAILURE!

 ©SIMON BACON 2018

 

 

 

 

 

BURNING COMPOSTABLE WASTE IS ROTTEN!

People who say it is good to burn compostable waste as it creates renewable energy are talking rot !

In the city of Derby UK a waste gasification incineration plant is under construction and one of the driving forces behind the development are government bungs known as ROCs for energy generated by burning biodegradable waste.
You can read more about ROCs and the Sinfin Lane waste gasification plant here-
 http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.com/2018/05/get-ya-rocs-off.html
 

Judging by the amount of odour complaints about the plant before the plant is fully operational there is certainly something rotten about the proposal.

The council in Derby changed to a Conservative administration in May 2018 and part of their electioneering was to state they would return to a free garden waste collection service - after the previous Labour council removed the free garden and food waste service which had run all year and replaced it with a charged for service (£40) for a garden waste only part year service.
With the prospect of a return to a free service brings with it the ability to also accept food waste in the cities brown bin recycling scheme. Ever since the free collection was removed the council still continued to send garden waste to Vital Earth at Ashbourne in Derbyshire which runs an in vessel composting process which produces a sterile product from garden and food waste.
The key point here however is that when there was a charged for service the council could not collect food waste in the same recycling bin because it would be considered that the council was also charging for food waste collections - which is not legal under government regulations on waste disposal. Common sense should say that the food waste was an extra to the charged for garden service - which could have been seen as good as it would have diverted biodegradable waste from landfill and incineration but here at the Rubbish Blog we don't set government regulation.
The public of Derby will now be expecting the election pledge by the now Conservative council in the city to be put in place as soon as possible and there is talk of this happening in 2019 however little evidence of this proposal is currently in the public domain.
Residual waste inspections carried out in the city in Summer 2017 have led to a better understanding of what is the composition of the waste Derby residents place in their black residual waste bins.
What we know is that around 44% of the waste heading to the Sinfin waste incineration plant is a mix of garden and food waste.
So what is likely sinking in with Derby City Council is that there is 44% of their waste being shipped to be burnt in Sinfin which could potentially be processed a lot cheaper at Vital Earth in Ashbourne where the councils garden waste was composted in 2017/18 for just £31.53 per tonne after the council got a generous rebate of £10 per tonne of waste shipped to the site.
But how can the council make use of this cheap service - which would also boost the cities recycling rate by a vast amount when they are contractually required to feed the Sinfin waste incineration plant?
They are not only required in the contract to procure waste of specific characteristics, organic content, moisture content etc but also when investing a lump sum of £25 million into the project the lower the amount of waste sent to Sinfin the higher the per tonne cost the council faces when we divide the payment by tonnage sent which then undermines the councils business case.
Almost ten years down the line with the incineration plant still not handed over not only does the plant itself stink but so does the project the council has signed up to.

©SIMON BACON 2018
 

 



Get ya ROCs off!

On April 30th 2018 Resource Recovery Solutions Derbyshire Ltd (RRS) announced that their controversial waste gasification incineration plant had been granted ROCs - Renewable Obligation Certificates for the electrical energy they will produce from the biodegradable aspect of household waste which the plant will take in for burning.

Renewi one of the parent companies of RRS released a press release relating to the granting of ROCs to the Sinfin Lane, Derby project which contain quite a degree of hot air.

They stated that "Up to 98% of the residual waste managed at the facility will be diverted from landfill, which will also generate enough green electricity to power approximately 14,000 homes."

While the plant may generate enough electricity for 14,000 homes - that is yet to be shown one thing is for sure - an unconfirmed percentage of the power generated will come not from so called green electricity - which is considered by the likes of OFGEM as biodegradable wastes being combusted but in fact non biodegradable waste such as plastics - ie fossil fuels.

It is fact (confirmed via FOI/EIR) that in the city of Derby 9,000 properties have no recycling scheme in place - after Derby City Council removed the service stating recycling bin contamination as an excuse.

What this means is that a percentage of waste entering the Sinfin facility will have had no prior recycling applied to it. Paper and card should have been recycled removing it from the residual waste stream entering the Sinfin site in Derby. Instead such material is condemned to be burnt to generate OFGEM funded electricity via ROC payments - ROCs being funded from green charges applied to our energy bills.

Has recycling been removed in the city to procure suitable waste to generate lucrative ROC payments?

Someone called James Priestley said the following-

James Priestley, Managing Director of Renewi’s Municipal Division, said:

 “We are delighted to have been awarded this important ROCs accreditation which is another significant milestone achieved in this project. Not only does this accreditation bring financial support to the project, it also shows how we are using innovative technologies to operate sustainably, divert waste from landfill and create valuable products from waste. We are looking forward to completing the final stages of commissioning and to providing first class, sustainable waste services for the people of Derby and Derbyshire.”

  Now when you use the terms innovative and first class you think ground breaking and efficient and you could be forgiven for thinking this applied in the Derby projects case but the reality is somewhat different.

At the second public inquiry into the project the planning inspector required RRS to provide evidence of their projects energy efficiency status - an important aspect of the project which was a useful insight into the project.

At the second public inquiry RRS were forced to admit that

 in the plants standard electricity only mode their plant was in fact nothing more than what is known as a D10 disposal plant because the energy efficiency status of the process falls below that which would class the plant as an efficient recovery process.

 

To see what the Waste Framework Directive says about a plant being recovery R1 or disposal D10 below is a series of quotes from the directive.

Recovery or disposal – the meaning of R1

47. The Waste Framework Directive (WFD) sets out the waste hierarchy and enshrines it in law. It requires that a waste management route defined as recovery should be used ahead of an alternative that is classified as disposal. Exceptions can be made (see below) but this general principle makes it important to know whether a process is considered recovery or disposal. 

48. Historically the Waste Framework Directives have included annexes which set out lists of what are considered to be recovery or disposal operations. Each is given a number and a letter: R for recovery, D for disposal. In the current directive the classifications of particular relevance to energy from waste are: • R1 – Use principally as a fuel or other means to generate energy • D10 – Incineration on land 

49. What this means is that where waste is burnt as a fuel to generate energy it can potentially be considered a recovery operation (R1) but where the purpose of incineration is to get rid of waste, it is considered D10 and hence disposal.  All municipal waste incinerators were and are deemed as disposal activities (D10) unless and until they are shown to meet the requirements of R1. This is why the term R1 often crops up in the debate about how good an energy from waste plant might be and how it compares to other options. 

50. For municipal solid waste, which includes all the waste collected from households, the EU has gone further by defining what it considers to be sufficient for recovery status under R1. The WFD includes a formula relating to the efficiency of the combustion plant. A municipal waste combustion plant can only be considered to be a recovery operation under R1 if it generates energy and the plant meets the efficiency thresholds calculated using the R1 formula

SO THAT IS THE OFFICIAL BLURB FROM DEFRA ON RECOVERY OR DISPOSAL PLANTS AS GOVERNED BY EU DIRECTIVES - WHICH STILL GOVERN THE UK SINCE BREXIT.

Why are OFGEM supporting inefficient waste gasification incineration plants? the lure of lucrative subsidies in this case in Sinfin Derby has in part led to the route this project has taken which is condemning resources to being burnt for a small amount of energy made financially viable by government subsidy.

OFGEM are rewarding failure.

©SIMON BACON 2018

IT'S GETTING HOT AND STEAMY AT THE SINFIN INCINERATION PLANT

Nine years after the Sinfin incineration plant project became the hottest topic in the

Derby City Council planning department Resource Recovery Solutions or at least one of its parents Interserve have finally struck the match to light up the waste plants burners.
 

Interserve - a major player in construction projects across the UK and a parent of Resource Recovery Solutions (RRS) has been on the ropes in the last year or so as they suffered a number of problems in their energy from waste project portfolio with strong links to the collapse of ENERGOS the incineration technology developers for the Sinfin plant.
 

In the case of the Sinfin project Interserve and Renewi the other parent in this project have relied heavily on the experiences of two other projects in the UK in Milton Keynes and Glasgow which also use Energos technology. In the case of the Glasgow project who also employed Interserve to construct the plant Interserve suffered the ultimate shame of being thrown off the project.

Because of the collapse of ENERGOS and its claimed updated technology contractors have had to work through the plants installation learning from the experiences of the likes of the Milton Keynes facility.

Thank god we were able to delay the plant long enough that ENERGOS collapsed otherwise the Sinfin plant in Derby would already be polluting the city.

 

As it stands the Sinfin project has begun some forms of testing.
 The plant has started accepting waste again which is being converted into refuse derived fuel known as RDF. This "fuel" is currently being exported off site while the incineration section of the plant begins the warm up process so that it is able to be tested before becoming operational later in 2018.

We are told that currently the plant is using its diesel fuelled backup burners to warm the incineration lines up and that steam is being generated for steam blows to clean out the plants systems.

Emissions relating to this have been seen leaving the plants stack in recent weeks as shown below when in the early stages emissions were just a lazy flow.
 

 

As time has passed the plant has vastly ramped up its emissions which included steam being vented at low level from the rear of the plant.

 

 

Things developed further and in recent days the volume of steam being emitted from the rear of the plant around the cooling system reached far beyond what local people expected and in one case someone called the fire brigade thinking that the plant was on fire.

 

 

The plant unlike energy from waste plants in Holland etc has installed a giant cooling plant at the back of the plant to cool the steam produced after it has been used in the plants turbine. In Holland they use that energy in the steam to heat local buildings to get worth from the waste that was burnt. Here in Derby we waste that energy to the atmosphere which is quite shameful and why the plant is considered to be an inefficient D10 waste disposal plant compared to an R1 recovery facility.

 

While the contractor RRS indicates it has notified the fire service and also local businesses it isn't clear what if anything they have done to notify local residents in the likes of Victory Road and Sinfin Lane in relation to the large volume steam vents.

You would expect a contractor working for the local council would show the local community - its neighbours more respect than this.

 

In the coming weeks the plant will be testing its turbine to prove it can generate electricity and this includes providing proof to meet the requirements for ROC accreditation (but that's another story).

Then the contractor has to make the plant run for 25 years successfully - and within 10 working days of handover both the city and county council have to stump up £25 MILLION towards the plant.

 

Locals are steaming about this and the burners have only just been lit!

 

 

 

 ©SIMON BACON 2018

 

 

 

  

Consultation - an exchange of views they dont really want!

CONSULTATION - AN EXCHANGE OF VIEWS IN AN ATTEMPT TO REACH A DECISION !

 

So that is what a consultation is considered to be - an exchange of views relating to a decision.
But what about a decision where those making the ruling consider that they do not NEED to consult or do so in such a way that those being consulted do not even know they are subject of a consultation!

 

My previous blog post broke the news to many that they were being consulted on a proposal to burn almost 18,000 tonnes more waste in Sinfin, Derby at a controversial waste incineration plant that has yet to even start operations! It was early December 2016 when the UK Without Incineration Network first advised me that they had spotted a consultation on the subject on an obscure Environment Agency website that 99.9% of people would never look at.

My previous blog post gave the background to this situation and was supplied to local media, Derby News, Derby Telegraph and East Midlands Today etc for further promotion to the public.

To catch up on that post take a look here

 http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/are-we-permitted-to-comment.html

 

As I considered this situation unacceptable I contacted the Environment Agency to make a complaint about the consultation as I felt that it was not in the spirit of public engagement as they were failing to gain the views of the community around the facility they were ruling on. The Environment Agency was fully aware of the controversial nature of the project and so should have expected local opposition and so should have been open to engagement.
The response from the Environment Agency appears to set out that we should consider ourselves lucky to even have online consultation access noting that in the last three months they have improved the web based consultation as previously people would have had to go to the local Environment Agency office (which sounds like last century consultation methods). They also say they have a policy of increased consultation where they consider there is likely to be a high degree of local interest and that this could include wider advertising for example in local newspapers -
 WHICH WAS NOT THE CASE WITH THIS APPLICATION!

 

We also learn that this has been the practice since 2010! the Environment Agency are so welcoming of public comment, views and opinions that they have been hiding the consultations for over 6 years squirrelling them away on some faceless government websites and in local Environment Agency office's for all those years.

 

 

After I replied to the Environment Agency further they upgraded my complaint to the Regime Team Leader no less who continued to trot out the excuses for the poor public liaison stating that "We do not publicise all applications" so god help local residents across the UK.
 The team leader went onto suggest that the Sinfin, Derby application was a "normal" variation application which we do not usually publicise. Hold on a minute this is an application to burn thousands of tonnes more waste at a controversial plant which has not even started operations yet! and the Environment Agency are saying they would not usually publicise.

Some are now likening the stance of the Environment Agency to something out of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - which included the following -

“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”...
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

 “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

As an update to this blog post I wrote to my MP - Margaret Beckett who was previously a government minister for DEFRA etc who then wrote to the Environment Agency Chief Executive James Bevan. He then passed it onto Mark Haslam the Area Environment Manager for the East Midlands who just sent her the same kind of waffle that they had already sent me. It appears that Margaret Beckett doesn't recognise the issue that if the public are not consulted then there is something very wrong!

SOME SAY THAT ALL I NEED IS THE AIR THAT I BREATHE !

IF IT IS LEFT TO THE UK ENVIRONMENT AGENCY IT IS NOT CLEAR IF YOU CAN EVEN HAVE THAT!

 

©SIMON BACON 2017

If only the council had some money to invest!

Derby used to have an events venue called the Assembly Rooms which was closed after a fire in the attached car park and so Derby now lacks a suitable venue for theatre and music because the council claimed the venue needed to much work doing to it after the fire. This has been the subject of great debate since the fire. The council proposes to replace the venue but is not able to say when due to lack of funds.

The local newspaper the Derby Telegraph ran this story on the venues closure and proposed replacement.

 http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/3-000-capacity-concert-venue-1-600-seat-theatre/story-28928499-detail/story.html 

 

IF ONLY THE CITY HAD SOME MONEY TO INVEST!

 

Derby used to have two large swimming venues open to the public and supporting local aquatic clubs allowing them to compete at local and international level.

Sadly due to suggested government cuts this has led to the council closing the Moorways swimming facility - a corner stone of local swimming provision dating back decades. The pool closed to the public at the end of March 2016 and residents are now struggling to continue their swimming as the cities other main venue has a faulty roof.

The local newspaper the Derby Telegraph ran this story on the pools closure

http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Sadness-Moorways-pool-closes-public/story-29028675-detail/story.html

 

IF ONLY THE CITY HAD SOME MONEY TO INVEST!

The city of Derby is slowly collapsing due to claimed government cuts forcing the council to reduce its budget to make savings. Money has to come out of specific pots to fund things which is regularly pointed out by the council.

IF ONLY THE CITY HAD SOME MONEY TO INVEST!

Well the reality is the council WOULD have money to invest in either of the projects if it had not jumped in with both feet with the Sinfin waste incineration plant project which first raised its head in public circles in late 2008.
A joint contract between the city and Derbyshire County Council will see Derby hosting the plant AND paying £25 MILLION towards the plants construction - which is 50% of the council build cost.
Now is it fair that the cities residents have to host the controversial plant AND pay 50% of the council payment for construction?
But it gets worse as the city does not collect enough residual waste to provide 50% of the plants feedstock and as recycling increases that in turn stops the city from being able to provide 50% of the feedstock.
You can read one of my previous blog posts to learn more about that situation by following this link

http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/derby-city-council-public-are-being.html

But what does it actually mean to us in the city? what it means is at the time the proposal was born the council - and so whoever was in charge sold the residents down the river by agreeing a joint contract that was in the County Councils favour and this continued up until the councils signed the full contracts - meaning that political parties of various colours in the city have played a part.
Someone in power somewhere was told city waste would spiral upwards and it would be good value for the city. At the same time the council was potentially in a better financial position than it is now but clearly potential changes in waste prediction or council finances were not considered carefully enough leading to the position we are now in.

SO WHAT ABOUT THE MONEY?

Derby is paying £25 million for a 25 year contract period at the start of the waste incineration plants operation which is a payment towards the plants construction. That's obviously £1 million per year for the processing of 95,000 tonnes of waste - 50% of the plants through put if you consider Derby is paying 50% of the build payment.
Based on 2014/15 data from DEFRA the city only collected 79,320 tonnes of residual waste leaving the city 15,680 tonnes short. At a rate of £10.53 (£1,000,000 divided by 95,000 tonnes) we as a city are paying £165,110.40 per year to much for the project - or £4,127,760 over the 25 year investment.

SO LETS GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING!

We need a new performance venue and we need a new swimming pool but the city has no money!

WELL WE COULD HAVE HAD £4.1 MILLION TO INVEST WITH BETTER PLANNING AND NEGOTIATIONS.

In an example of why we are in the mess that we are in in the city I attended the Derby City Council Full Council meeting on March 2nd 2016 to ask Cllr Asaf Afzal specific questions on the unfair share the city is paying. Even when the £4 million over payment was highlighted to Cllr Afzal he still considered that it was good value for the council - ignoring the fact that we share those claimed savings with Derbyshire County Council we are STILL over £4 million worse off.

WITH A COUNCIL WITH ITS HEAD IN THE SAND ON THE ISSUE THERE IS LITTLE WONDER WE ARE PAYING AN UNFAIR SHARE AND SO LITTLE WONDER WE HAVE NO MONEY FOR EVENTS VENUES AND SWIMMING POOLS!

©SIMON BACON 2016

Derby City Council - The public are being robbed! Derby and its unfair share!

With just over a year to go until the Resource Recovery Solutions (RRS) waste gasification incineration plant is completed on the ex tannery site on Sinfin Lane, Sinfin, Derby we find that Derby City Council's thoughts are turning to the payment they will be due to make to their contractor Shanks as their share of the build costs from the joint waste contract with Derbyshire County Council. Due to enter service on April 1st 2017 - no seriously April Fools day the plants construction is well under way with the recent construction of the plants 55 metre high smoke stack that now dominates the local community - even glowing a sinister shade of red at night.

The stack is to the left end of the storage container

The new stack looms over the local bowling alley at night

 

A Derby City Council document submitted for the 20th January 2016 cabinet meeting shows that the council are already lining up their payment of £25 MILLION

 

So that's £25 million to be paid in just over a years time when the plant starts accepting contract waste - the total payment by the councils being £50 million paid as an equal share by both councils.

We know its being paid as an equal share because the waste contract tells us this - in the image below.

Now when paying an equal share in a relationship such as this you would expect the councils to be equal partners. Derby City Council - and so its residents already have to host the controversial waste incineration plant while the county faces none of the controversial issues such a plant brings.

SO IS THIS AN EQUAL PARTNERSHIP?

IT WOULD APPEAR NOT!

The Inter Authority Agreement between the councils sets out issues around what they call the NWTF which is the New Waste Treatment Facility - which is being built on Sinfin Lane. Most of us call it what it is - an incineration plant.

An equal partnership would be a 50/50 split in everything - from the payments the councils are to make through to the plants projected use.

While the councils are indeed paying equal shares do they get equal benefit?

 

Paying 50% of the council payment towards the build cost of the plant - £25 million should allow Derby City Council to send 50% of the waste to the 190,000 tonne a year plant.

BUT!

Derby City Council DOES NOT collect 95,000 tonnes of residual waste! 

DEFRA waste findings published in December 2015 for the year 2014/15 highlight that the city council collected 114,800 tonnes of waste BUT after recycling is taken into account it only collected 79,320 tonnes of residual waste! leaving the council over 15,600 tonnes short!

 

So why are Derby City Council and its residents getting the raw deal here!

PAY 50% OF THE BUILD CHARGE WITHOUT THE SAME BENEFITS OF YOUR PARTNER!

Once again the residents of Derby are being short changed - and at the agreement of their council! 

 

©SIMON BACON 2016

 

 

 

 

 

NO ! please don't pay us !

CUTS ! CUTS! CUTS! that's all we hear about in Derby UK from the council and the leader Ranjit Banwait. Service after service is being cut and jobs and pay are being reviewed!
The latest example being here http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Protest-outside-Council-House-pay-dispute/story-27941303-detail/story.html
With this in mind you would expect the council to generate income from buildings and sites it owns in the city to help fight these cuts ! well it would make common sense wouldn't it ?
Well you would think it would but then this is Derby City Council we are talking about which is why we learnt in recent weeks after I put a question to the council at a recent Full Council meeting that the council is not being paid any rent for the use of the Sinfin Tannery site as a construction site for the controversial Sinfin waste incineration plant. The site comprising 4.2 hectares of land sited next to Sinfin Lane in Sinfin, Derby will be used by Resource Recovery Solutions - a Shanks / Interserve company for more than two decades to process and burn via a gasification process the waste of Derby and Derbyshire.

On 16th September 2015 I asked the following at the Derby City Council Full Council meeting.

"Question from Simon Bacon to Councillor Rawson 
At a recent Blagreaves Forum Councillor Banwait suggested the council lacked property that it could generate income from to help in these times of financial hardship. The city council is owner of the Sinfin Tannery site on Sinfin Lane which is now in use as a building site for the joint waste management contract.  
Please confirm how much the Council is being paid yearly since work started for use of the site?"

The council response - given by Councillor Martin Rawson came as something of a surprise !
 
"The Council is not seeking to generate an income from this site; we are building a waste processing centre on it with our partners.  The facility will provide a sustainable way of dealing with the residual waste produced by the City and parts of the County."

So while we have the leader of the city council claiming we lacked property to generate income we gift a valuable parcel of land to others !

The deal Derby residents are getting is as raw as an uncooked sausage !

©SIMON BACON 2016



Demolition Derby comes to Sinfin Lane.



Housing who needs housing eh ! Shanks Waste certainly don't having applied recently to knock down 1-5 Railway Cottages on Sinfin Lane in Derby. These cottages until recently were the nearest neighbour to the controversial waste incineration plant Shanks Waste and Interserve are building on the Sinfin Tannery site in the Sinfin area of Derby. After a lengthy battle to stop this proposal including two public inquiries and various legal challenges planning was granted and construction has started. In the late Autumn of 2014 the residents living in these homes got a nasty surprise when their landlord terminated their leases on the homes leading to them being forced from their homes in the run up to Christmas. Shanks Waste trying to smooth things over said they purchased with vacant possession - well yes because the previous landlord shoved them out in the run up to Christmas - such festive spirit!
Having paid £390,000 for the properties as a whole Shanks waste would not say why they wanted to buy them - they had never been earmarked in public as forming part of the site before so what was the reasoning! They claimed in an article in the Derby Telegraph that it was to allow flexibility and efficiency but they had no definite plans for the land. You can read more here http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Waste-row-firm-wants-bulldoze-houses-near/story-26013870-detail/story.html
So we have a waste disposal company who can afford to spend close to £400,000 on a group of properties to then simply knock them down while there is a large city wide housing waiting list where people are crying out for homes.
As the waste incineration plant is being built on council land and is part of a 25 year waste disposal deal between Derby City and Derbyshire County Council it is quite clear who is paying bills for this proposal - Council Tax payers !
Update on 07th Oct 2015
This is how Shanks treats its neighbours - buy up the houses forcing the residents out and knock em down !

 

 

 

NEIGHBOURS ! EVERYBODY NEEDS GOOD NEIGHBOURS !

 

 

©SIMON BACON 2016

The S.S.A.I.N press release - 22nd Aug 2014

DERBY UK 22^ND AUG 2014 – RESPONSE TO DERBY CITY AND COUNTY COUNCIL PRESS RELEASE OF 21^ST AUG 2014

 

SINFIN INEFFICIENT WASTE INCINERATION PLANT BACKED BY SO CALLED GREEN INVESTMENT BANK GETS GO AHEAD

As the recycling rate of Derby City Council enters an ever steeper decline with the implementation of a £40 garden waste tax news broke on 21^st of August that the councils of Derby and Derbyshire have reached closure on a controversial waste incineration plant to be constructed in an area of poor health and deprivation in the heart of Sinfin in the city of Derby.

Sited on an ex tannery and landfill http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2014_05_01_archive.html currently subject to local concern regarding anthrax site contamination risking health both on and off site the controversial waste incineration plant has been successfully delayed by campaigners concerned about health impacts from the billion cubic metres of emissions per year from the plant along with the threat of wide spread combustion in the plant of materials which could and should be recycled. This was confirmed in the recent Derbyshire County Council waste draft strategy document on page 16 where it is noted 47% of residual waste in Derbyshire is recyclable waste. http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/images/Dealing%20with%20Derbyshires%20Waste%20Draft%20Strategy_tcm44-234569.pdf

In a bizarre twist supported by Vince Cable the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) has agreed to invest £64 million in the project even though the plant destroys potentially recyclable material and was show at the 2^nd Derby public inquiry to be in its standard electricity only mode an inefficient waste disposal incineration plant which fails to meet the requirements of the R1 formula test of plant efficiency. It is not clear why a green investment bank would invest in such an inefficient plant. The council’s developer – Resource Recovery Solutions has at no point shown any evidence of local customer demand for heat and steam from the plant which would allow the plant to become an R1 compliant recovery facility. It therefore languishes on the bottom tier of the waste hierarchy in disposal.

The council press release implied that any recyclable materials would be extracted at the plant however no documents were put forward at either planning or at either public inquiry showing this to be the case – only that which would not burn would be extracted.

The councils of Derby and Derbyshire are very enthusiastic for the Sinfin plant to go ahead. In the case of Derbyshire County Council this is because they get their rubbish burnt on someone else’s door step and in the case of both councils they will be rewarded for procuring the correct feedstock – as shown in the waste contract with highly lucrative Renewable Obligation Certificates known as ROC’s. It is not clear why such an inefficient plant that sits at the bottom of the waste hierarchy will be rewarded for its failure to be efficient at energy generation and this opens the door for similar inefficient plants to be constructed across the UK. A legacy of the Green Investment Bank will be waste forced down the waste hierarchy with the claims of green energy and sustainable waste management while the reality is large volumes of combustion emissions will be pumped into a poor city community, resources will be destroyed and lives ruined – all in the name of green energy.

SIMON BACON

CHAIRMAN

SINFIN, SPONDON AND ALL AGAINST INCINERATION (S.S.A.I.N)

EMAIL S.S.A.I.N via ssainderby@aol.com

Twitter @ssainderby

END

©SIMON BACON 2016