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

Educating Derby on rubbish is err RUBBISH!

With the current state of the streets in areas of Derby blighted by fly tipped waste, in the image below it's recyclable waste dumped on Middleton Street, Normanton

 recycling bins being removed because of claims that residents don't use them correctly http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Rubbish-bins-Derby-s-green-protesters-blues/story-25756604-detail/story.html which has been questioned on this blog before due to a lack of evidence and then the dire spiral downwards of the cities recycling rate from a high of 48% to a new predicted low of 32% covered in this previous blog post http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-decay-of-recycling-in-derby.html . It would seem a simple no brainer to spend a healthy amount of the councils waste budget on waste minimisation and education.
Sadly this is not the case as a recent FOI request on the subject put into Derby City Council after I viewed the councils accounts highlighted that in total the council was spending less than £50,000 on waste minimisation and education while paying Resource Recovery Solutions - RRS (a Shanks waste company) over £8.66 million for disposal of waste and operation of the Raynesway HWRC site. Of that £8.66 million less than £34,000 was paid to RRS for minimisation and education and when added to the spend from outside of the waste contract the figure was less than £50,000.
It struck me why are we paying a waste contractor over £8 million to handle waste - much of which will end up landfilled or incinerated via a contract which cost in 2013/14 £118 per tonne when the alternatives being reduction, reuse and recycling cost £10 per tonne or less! The council keep telling us they have no money due to government cuts but they are actually preferring to handle waste via its most expensive route.
Come on its a no brainer isn't it ? every tonne extra recycled costing the council £10 or reduced - costing the council nothing is a tonne the council isn't paying £118 a tonne to dispose of.
On 28th January I went to the Full Council meeting at Derby City Council to put a public question to the council in relation to why the council is spending so much on disposal compared to educating residents.

f. Question from Simon Bacon to Councillor Afzal 

In 2013/14 Derby City Council paid Resource Recovery Solutions - a SHANKS company £8,666,724 to handle 79,995 tonnes of the waste of Derby. Of that just £33,279 was spent on waste minimisation and education and when added to non RRS spend on waste minimisation and education of £13,984 equates to spending less than £50,000 on sustainable waste management education.   
Why is Derby City Council spending so little on waste reduction while spending so much on disposal via landfill and incineration.

The response was a fair bit of waffle about what they are going to do bla bla bla but they also set out that Household waste management costs for 2012/13 published by Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and reported by the Audit Commission, indicate that of £3.3 Billion spent nationally on household waste management, only £25.6 Million was spent of waste minimisation, which is less than 1% of the total national spend on household waste. Derby allocated around 0.5% of its 2013-14 waste spends on recycling and waste reduction initiatives. However, the national average cannot be considered an absolute target for spend and the city is satisfied it has got good value for money from the budget it has spent on educating its residents and young people in waste matters.

What the council is admitting there is that it spends less than the national average on waste education at a time when the streets are in a state, blue bin recycling is being removed and the recycling rate is spirally downwards.
As a follow up question I asked at a time when recycling is going so wrong in Derby is the council spending so little.
The answer came from the leader of the council Ranjit Banwait who indicated they couldn't spend more on waste education due to government cuts. What Councillor Banwait ignores in saying this is the saving that comes from educating residents on waste disposal becomes self financing due to the gulf between recycling costing £10 and residual disposal costing £118 - every tonne diverted via education saves £108 !
Landfilling and incinerating waste is rubbish ! we should be educating residents how to dispose of their waste in the correct way leading to cleaner streets, better, higher recycling rates and reduced disposal costs -
SAVING US MONEY !

©SIMON BACON 2016



The decay of recycling in Derby

Recycling in Derby is under attack by the city council who are now wedded to a waste contract spanning decades to feed a waste incineration plant under construction. The plant will require them to procure waste of set tonnage, moisture, calorific and biomass values which is at odds with the requirement to meet recycling targets such as the 50% 2020 national figure or the councils shared target with Derbyshire County Council of 55%.  Having hit a high of 48% recycling in 2010/11 the council itself is predicting a fall to 33% if their recycling scheme does not improve.
The removal of the free garden and food waste recycling scheme played a large part in the sudden downfall of the recycling scheme. It's replacement with a £40 charge for a part year garden waste only service led to widespread rejection and a sudden fall in the recycling rate.
Not satisfied with that destruction applied to the councils recycling scheme in 2013 the council decided to target specific areas of the city to remove kerbside recycling while claiming this was due to contamination issues and the need to improve the street scene. Areas targeted were Arboretum, Normanton, Abbey and New Zealand (an area of Mackworth). What became clear was that the council was targeting specific streets - including my own in Normanton so it was time to start asking questions.
It soon became clear having made an FOI on the subject that the council had no evidence to back their targeting of specific streets such as my own as contamination is extracted at processing time.
FOI 4662 confirmed this
"Tonnage data at round/street level is not available for blue bins as contamination tonnages are assessed after processing. "
With that in mind I thought I might as well ask BIFFA the waste processor directly as they take in Derby blue bin material at their plant on Victory Road in Derby. Nobody is better placed to comment than the company that actually accepts the material so I spoke to Steve Norman Regional Operations Manager in September 2013 who answered with the following.

Q1 Does the Biffa MRF facility in Victory Road have the need to reject incoming loads delivered in by Derby City Council due to excessively contaminated material?

Answer: The site at Victory Road has not to date rejected loads delivered to it premises. On the whole the material received is of a good quality and contains very low levels of contamination.

In the end kerbside recycling was removed from Arboretum with the provision of a restricted number of bring sites - which regularly attract fly tipping.

 Recycling removal was reported here on Letsrecycle  http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/derby-to-trial-recycling-collections-removal/
Move on a year and a bit like groundhog day the council wheeled out a plan to remove recycling from restricted areas of the New Zealand area of Mackworth ward - claiming once again that bins were contaminated. A classic Derby City Council consultation took place where residents responded asking to keep the recycling service only for them to be ignored with 2 out of 3 local councillors those being Cllrs Pegg and Whitby concluding the kerbside recycling should be removed. The story was covered by the Derby Telegraph in October 2014 - currently the scheme has yet to be removed - http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/BINS-CONTROVERSY-Blue-recycling-bin-collections/story-23787235-detail/story.html
After the rather undemocratic situation in the New Zealand area of the Mackworth ward the city decided why bother asking residents at all and so promptly announced they were going to remove kerbside recycling services from more streets in Arboretum and extend this into areas of the Normanton which is an area of the city the local Neighbourhood Board decided they did not want kerbside recycling removed from. This situation was reported recently on the Resource website http://resource.co/article/derby-remove-recycling-bins-more-households-6952
By this point I had already made an FOI into blue bin contamination because I recognised it was best practice since my investigations had taken place a year earlier and things could have changed.
FOI 6346 was put in to the council in September 2014 the councils own FOI dept responded to my question shown below -

3- How many loads of blue bin recyclables have been rejected by your contractor BIFFA at its Victory Road sorting facility in 2013/14

ANSWER: None, rejects are taken out during the sorting process. The average percentage of rejected material from the start of the new blue bin collection system on June 4^th 2013 to 31^st March 2014 was 5.8%.
 

It struck me that maybe I wasn't clear about the period I was interested in so I returned to the FOI dept for clarity which is shown below.

 

In relation to question 3 - rejected loads at the BIFFA site in error I referred to 2013/14 - what I had meant was 2013 / 2014 - ie 2013 and the year 2014 to date - please advise if the answer is any different."

 

Answer: No individual loads have ever been rejected, both in the old pre June 2013 arrangements or in the new current arrangements. All rejected materials have been and continue to be taken out as part of the sorting process.

 

So straight from the horses mouth we have statements from the council's own FOI dept that material IS NOT rejected by its sorting contractor because the process simply sorts the wheat from the chaff so to speak.

So where is the contaminated waste that causes the council so much horror that they remove swathes of kerbside recycling in the city?

The answer is who knows ! the council claim when bins are contaminated they are not collected by the council and are tagged. But where are all the tagged bins ? and if the councils own FOI dept says contamination is sorted out of the recyclate which backs up statements made by BIFFA are the councils just peddling a story to remove a service without actually having the evidence to back their claims.

Who are the losers ?

We all are as driving recycling backwards will lead to Derby missing government targets when it is clear that the technology in place addresses the issue of contamination. Removal of the kerbside service - which cost £10 per tonne in 2013/14 and replacing it with a disposal cost of circa £118 per tonne condemns Derby residents to paying a high premium to support the service removal - the council suggest this is £30,000. Finally the people who lose the most are the residents of the streets where recycling has been removed. Residents of Balaclava Road in Normanton for example will be expected to walk a round trip of almost 1,200 metres to a bring site on Havelock Road but even worse ! they cannot even do that as at the time this blog was written the new bring site had not even been installed !

 

©SIMON BACON 2016



 

 

 

 

The Tannery site gutted for development.

The destruction of the Sinfin Tannery site on Sinfin Lane Derby continues at pace. While the developer, Resource Recovery Solutions - a SHANKS waste company in association with Interserve through planning and the public inquiries painted the site as being a brownfield site the reality was somewhat different! While it was correct to suggest the site had housed industry previously - in this case a brick works and later an animal skin tannery all of which was demolished to suggest the site was brownfield would be to imply the site was an industrial wasteland. Those of us able to visit the site before the council removed that ability know very much that the site was actually a hub for wildlife next to an area of heavy industry - it was an oasis of grass, flowers, shrubs and trees and housed Derby's only population of Common Lizards - a BAP priority species. The image below shows what the site previously looked like.

Once the developer secured the go ahead for construction the site and its grassland was razed to the ground in late winter - a time when the Common Lizards would be hibernating but contractors carried out the work after a spell of poor weather turning the site into a mud bath.

Please take some time to watch a video from the site after contractors cleared the site

The developer was reported to Derbyshire police but the police took no action.
What may come as a surprise to some was the enthusiastic welcome Derby North MP Chris Williamson gave the funding of the waste incineration plant. A surprise because the MP is a vocal supporter of wildlife but happily welcomes the destruction of a site which was home to foxes and other mammals. He took to Twitter to announce his pleasure -

Chris Williamson ‏@ChriswMP Aug 21

Delighted Green Investment Bank's confirmed it'll finance Derby's waste treatment facility that'll reduce landfill & cut 50k tonnes of CO2

 

So what is the current status of the site ? Well construction of the access has started and the site has been basically gutted as shown in the final image - the only untouched areas being the Common Lizard holding area.

 

©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

Show me da money ! show me your accounts !

As a campaigner against a council you can often find a wall of silence when it comes to costs of a service ! councils don't like to tell Joe Public the more complex aspects of their finances because then we would know to much and that's bad if your a council. Councils just like us to pay our taxes and like it - but sometimes we need to peel back the layers to find out just what is lurking under the surface. Thankfully we have a legal right to do so via the Audit Commission Act and other such regulations. This allows the public access to the accounts of your local council in the UK for the previous financial year for a set period. Don't expect your local council to sing this from the rooftops - the notification could be just one newspaper advert in your local paper so keep a look out in the public notices section.

Here in Derby that notification appeared on 13th June 2014 for the period covering the financial year 2013/14 and you had to request to view the accounts by writing to the council (or emailing them). Derby City Councils accounts were open for viewing this year from June 30th to 25th July and it is important to notify the council of when you would like to attend, what you would like to see etc.
Potentially you can view books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts but expect the council to be cagey about certain aspects for example contracts may have sections redacted (blacked out) if considered commercially confidential.

When attending to view the accounts often these days documents are electronic. This stops you from being able to simply rifle through bills and receipts for the period which used to turn up some little gems. Make sure you ask to see a list of the accounts for the specific area of interest you are looking at so you can go through and ask to see bills and receipts of interest - sometimes you have to probe a little and if the accountant seems a bit cagey about something then maybe you have found a murky fact ! What you are doing is turning the tables on the council and instead of them holding you to account your holding them to account ! try and be polite but don't be put off ! it could be that the accountant doesn't have the depth of knowledge on some aspects of the accounts so he or she may have to come back to you at a later date with answers to some of your questions. Having a good relationship with the accountant is key as we want all the answers - not an accountant who clams up.

So there we have it ! if you want to know what your local council spends its money on - sorry your money on - go and find out ! Approach your council and ask what period of the year such viewing takes place. Make a note and look out in the local paper for notification. Remember they wont go out of their way to tell the public - so make a point of finding out officially. When you ask to view the accounts make sure you set out fully the aspects you want to see, attend on time in a respectful manner with paper, pen, pencil, camera and take your time to go through what you want to see. Do not be afraid to ask questions if something is missing or it is hard to understand. The council should be happy to help you out and answer your queries and hopefully copy you the accounts your interested in !
Now you have a new weapon in your armoury which links up nicely with the likes of Freedom of Information - also known as FOI where your questions under FOI can be aimed more carefully due to the financial accounts you have seen first hand.

©SIMON BACON 2016



The £50 million claim of the council leader pre election !

In recent months in incineration circles the media story around the controversial Kings Lynn incinerator has been something of a main event ! Finally when push came to shove in that case the local council pulled out of the incinerator project with talk of a cost to the council of £30 million or so - the government are currently refusing to help out that local council.
Such a situation raises some serious questions in relation to how a council finds itself in a position where it can be trapped into a waste contract or plant procurement. When this happens it stops councils from being able to manage waste in the most sustainable way because they are locked into projects which last decades, cost millions and manage waste via inefficient forms of incineration.
Here in Derby UK we find that the suggested costs to leave a waste contract which we have between the city and county with Shanks Waste via Resource Recovery Solutions is claimed to be even higher ! In a recent media story the then leader of Derby City Council - Councillor Paul Bayliss made a claim that it would cost at least £50 million to tear up the waste contract. This was in response to members of TUSK who were standing for election in Derby.
The claims can be seen here in the Derby Telegraph article Derby Telegraph story referring to the waste project
Such claims by the then leader of Derby City Council could not go unchallenged because these were serious claims being made by the head of the city. Were these claims true ? was the leader using such scaremongering to impact on the local election result in the Sinfin and Osmaston ward - where the controversial incinerator is proposed ?
An email was sent to Councillor Bayliss on 15th May 2014

" Dear Councillor Bayliss,

In recent days you have made statements about costs of £50 million that the council face if they pulled out of the waste contract. Could you please provide the evidence to back up your claims. We ask as we consider it is important that as a council you are open and clear on this situation so that members of the public can fully understand your claims. If you are going to make a statement referring to for example the contract then please provide a copy for clarity.

I copy this to the Derby Telegraph who ran the story in relation to TUSK.

 Kind regards

Simon Bacon
Chairman
S.S.A.I.N"

It was a long wait for a reply and I had to poke Councillor Bayliss to get a response on 31st May
Mr Bayliss wasn't keen to confirm what evidence he had to back up his claims and tried to divert such questions to the new leader of the council.

" Hi
I received the e mail but I was busy with election business.
I stand my statement to cut & run from the contract & the Inter authority agreement would cost £50 million at least.
Please refer all your questions on this matter to the new Leader elect in the future.

Regards
Sent from Cllr Paul Bayliss, Alvaston ward"

 

I went back to Mr Bayliss after his reply

 

" Thanks for your reply,

I granted you time to reply noting it was election time.

I asked you to provide evidence of your claim - making such claims pre election could be seen as an attempt to impact on an election result - for this reason it is reasonable in my view to ask you for proof.

You made the claim - now back it up or we can only conclude you have no evidence which raises the question of if you made false statements while leader of Derby City Council.

 

Simon Bacon

Chairman

S.S.A.I.N"

 

Mr Bayliss responded again

 

"Simon

We are never going to resolve this one so I think it’s best if we agree to differ.

Regards

 

Cllr Paul Bayliss "

 

Mr Bayliss was being evasive - but then he is a politician ! I went back to him yet again !

"

That's OK Cllr Bayliss - we will go with - ex leader of Derby City Council refuses to prove his claims that to leave the controversial waste disposal contract would cost £50 million raising the question was such a claim put forward to influence voting in the Sinfin and Osmaston ward of Derby in the recent election.

Thanks

Simon Bacon"

 

Ever evasive Cllr Bayliss responded further

 

" Simon

This is a democracy, you don’t seem to like it when I disagree with you. The vote impact next time will be the same as it was a couple of weeks ago in my view.

So I wish you well.

Cllr Paul Bayliss "

 

It was important to highlight to Mr Bayliss that it wasn't acceptable to make claims without backing them up

 

" Cllr Bayliss,

What I dont like is a leader (now ex) making statements in the media that they then will not provide evidence to back up.

Regards

Simon Bacon"

 

Mr Bayliss responded with what is a pretty common brush off when a councillor doesn't want to talk about a situation

 

"Hello

Simon

As I have said you and I are just going to have to differ on this.

Thanks

Cllr Paul Bayliss "

 

I returned to Councillor Bayliss with the following

 

" Thanks Cllr Bayliss,

Its not about differing on something - its about being asked for proof of your claims and you not providing them - which raises the issue of were your claims factually correct when printed in the media.

Regards

Simon Bacon"

 

That was the last response from Councillor Paul Bayliss as I write this blog post. He has made strong claims in stories in the media about a waste project and potential costs but has consistently side stepped the core questions put to him - to prove his claims ! Did he make his claims to impact on the local election? do his claims stack up? has he proven his claims to the media before they were published?

Waste is a dirty business !

 

©SIMON BACON 2016