Richmond Hill Community Forum

Richmond Hill Community Forum
Monday 6.00pm
19 September 2011
(NO VENUE ANNOUNCED YET)


Once again Waste Management is on the agenda for this meeting but this time it is listed as Waste Management Facility.  Does this mean that the decision we have been awaiting regarding the naming on the lucky winner of the PFI 'jackpot' has been made, we just don't know?


We know that last time they did not turn up but this time we expect them to, when a venue is finally announced.  The fact that the date of the meeting has been changed and that no venue has yet been confirmed, even at this late date, would lead those of us with suspicious minds to suggest that this meeting is not meant to be well attended - but we hope that that will not be case.


As soon as the venue is confirmed we will put it on the Blog, Facebook and Twitter and emailed to our friends so what this space.


We need to turn up and ask the awkward questions about this facility, its costs, its effects and its future that the residents of Leeds deserve to have asked

Waste Management and the PACT meeting

Last night in a truly bizarre twist Waste Management, in the the form of Andrew Lingham turned up at the neighbourhood policing meeting held at the Richmond Hill Community Centre completely out of the blue. The subject of the proposed incinerator then took up almost the entire first hour of the two hour meeting though it had absolutely nothing to do with local policing.

 

We get the impression that Andrew thinks there is personal animosity between protest groups like ours and himself so let us assure him here and now that this is in no way true. NO2Incinerator knows quite well that Andrew is only doing the job he is employed to do the best way he can and we, at least, respect the fact that he is willing to come to meetings and fight his corner unlike others in his department.

 

I suspect that we are never going to agree on the incinerator but Andrew did tell us that the final decision on the winning bid will be announced around November and that the planning application will go in early next year.

 

He also confirmed that the decision to build an incinerator and to build it here was taken some years ago and that none of the "consultations" had any effect on that process. There will be further "consultations" when the winning bidder is announced but on what are we to be consulted?

• It will not be the site - that has been decided;
• it will not be the winning bidder - that will have been decided too;
• it will not be the process to be used -that will have been decided

so what is left to talk about, the colour of the railings? These consultations are a dialogue with the deaf, they do not talk with us, they talk at us.

 

Insp J Hawkes

Several concerns were raised regarding this project amongst them traffic pollution from lorry movements in and out of the chosen site, Insp Jackie Hawkes said it would be no worse than the old car boot generated once a week, the audience were less than convinced by that argument. We also raised the matter of the falling waste stream, pointing out that Leeds had managed a 40% recycling rate for two months running even with little publicity and no city wide food collections yet started however this was dismissed by Andrew who seemed to imply that the figures were misleading.  He did agree that in the future there was likely to be less waste to process but maintained that there would be enough to keep an incinerator going without importing waste though he did mention that this incinerator would be processing some commercial waste which we had not previously been told. We vigorously challenged this assertion and pointed out that in just 10 years Sheffield have gone from not importing waste for their incinerator to wanting to import 50,000 tonnes of waste to keep its going because of a diminishing waste stream despite the assurances they gave at the time. There is no way that over the 25 year lifetime of this contract Waste Management could guarantee that they would not have to do the same, they simply do not have a crystal ball.

 

Concerns about the inclusion of Veolia in the bidding process, given their involvement in human rights violations as cited by the United Nations, was raised but Andrew was understandably not able to say much about that, neither could he address the issue of the PFI funding for this project despite the very well documented problems with multiple PFI projects around the country, it is simply not his area of expertise.

 

All in all it was a very strange meeting, we are sure that had it been widely known in advance that this matter was to be discussed last night many more interested people would have been there, certainly more people came to the last Richmond Hill Forum especially to discuss this very matter when Waste Management did not turn up (due apparently to some confusion) and we hope that Waste Management will turn up to the next Richmond Hill Forum meeting on Monday 5 September 2011 at St Phillip's Church Hall Osmondthorpe Lane, Leeds when we will again try to put our points of view across  - because the people in this area matter, their concerns and worries are just as valid as those in more affluent areas and we will not be brushed aside easily. We will fight tooth and nail for the future of our community and our children which we believe the incinerator will put in serious jeopardy.

The Richmond Hill Forum is discussing the Incinerator again

The Richmond Hill Forum, 6pm 13 June 2011 at the Richmond Hill Community Centre, Long Close Lane, Leeds,  will again be discussing the progress that has been made on the Waste Treatment Plant (Incinerator to you and me).

We are now coming closer and closer to the final bids for this plant being submitted and quite soon after that it is proposed to award the PFI contract to the winning bidder.

Until we know who the winning company is we will not know where this plant might eventually be built.  If Aire Valley Environmental win the contract the plant they want to build is proposed for the old filter beds at the Knowsthorpe Sewage Works, if Veolia were to win the contract they would want to put the plant on the site of the Old Wholesale Market at Cross Green right on our doorsteps.

Come along to the meeting, listen to what everyone has to say about the plans and the progress that has been made to date.  Take this chance to make your own views known to the Waste Management Team and the local Councillors, ask questions, find out where we are with this project now, what total cost is expected to be, indeed what it has cost already and most importantly what we really need for the future.

NO2Incinerator making their case at the Richmond Hill Family Fun Day

NO2Incinerator at the Richmond Hill Family Fun Day 1 June 2011

The NO2Incinerator campaign took a stall at the Richmond Hill Family Fun Day at All Saints School field on Wednesday afternoon.

We gave out publicity materials on our campaign and collected 'footprints' for our STAMP IT OUT art project.

It was a great chance to talk to people in the area about the implications of the proposed incinerators in East Leeds and their possible effect on our area and to put across our point of view and also explain about the problems there have been with other similar projects around the country.

A great time was had be all and congratulations must be passed on to External Services who put on a truly entertaining event and the weather was, for once, on our side everyone seemed to have an absolutely fabulous time.  The exotic creatures were a very big hit with everyone as you can see from the pictures in the slideshow.

NO2Incinerator will be at this community event

The NO2Incinerator campaign will be  at this community event to spread the word on the REDUCE, RE-USED and RECYCLE and to join in the fun.

We will be collecting footprints for our STAMP IT OUT art installation campaign, handing out balloons and publicity material and lollipops and hoping to interest both children and their in this important matter for all our futures.

Come along and enjoy the fun events, the result of some excellent work from the Extended Services team.

We are expecting a great time to be had by all.

Veolia seeks to combat Sheffield EfW shortfall

Incinerator Sheffield

One of the 2 remaining companies trying to win Leeds City Council’s contract to build an incinerator is Veolia. Veolia runs an EfW plant in Sheffield which has been operational since 2007. The company is now seeking to vary its planning permission for this plant to allow it to source 50,000 tonnes of residual waste from surrounding councils to make up the shortfall at the 250,000 tonnes a year plant following concerns about future under-capacity. The contract was signed in 2001 and already changes in people’s behaviour, increased recycling and an economic downturn is having a detrimental effect on the operation of the plant.

We have said all along that the proposed 160,000 tonnes Leeds incinerator, to be built under a PFI contract lasting as least 25 years, would be subject to the same commercial pressures and we have stated again and again our firm belief that if it became necessary the planning permissions under which such a plant should operate would be varied in order to keep the facility viable. When this concern was raised at the Richmond Hill Forum it was vigorously denied by the then council leader, Cllr Richard Brett (Lib Dem – Richmond Hill), but he did allow that there was provision for a 1% of waste to come from outside the area to cover areas which whilst not in the municipal area of Leeds which still had waste collection controlled by Leeds City Council. We however were not then, and are not now, convinced by these assurances since if this hugely expensive contract were to be signed the council would have no choice but to go along with any changes which the operator wanted or face having the plant closed or running at a substantial loss.

Our suspicions on this matter seemed to be confirmed when we realised that the Jacobs Report, which identified the four sites finally put forward for this project scored all the sites examined for access by road, rail and canal which pretty well ensured that the lower Aire Valley would be home to whichever site was finally selected. Why would bin wagons need either rail or canal access?

We have repeatedly pointed out the fast changing type and amount of waste across our city. We have stated plainly that inevitable future changes in the amount of waste available for incineration will affect the viability of any such plant thereby making it inevitable that waste would have to be imported to fill the shortfall if a combination of regulation, education and recycling succeed in lowering residual waste across the city as seems likely.

The Sheffield project has seen a huge change in its waste stream in just 10 years resulting in it needing to import waste from surrounding areas, the contract for the Leeds Municipal incinerator is planned for at least 25 years so it seems likely to us that whatever the assurances now it is likely that we too will end up shipping in waste from other areas to keep this municipal millstone from crushing us.

The Leeds City Councillors must stop, think and re-evaluate this project.

• Yes we have to deal with municipal waste.

• No we cannot keep sending so much to landfill.

• This technology, financed in this way, is not the answer.

Incineration does not make waste magically disappear it simply reduces the amount of waste to roughly one third but an amount of the ash produced by this process is extremely toxic and requires specialist disposal.

The costs to Leeds Council Tax payers involved in buying this seemingly quick solution to a very difficult and constantly evolving problem by buying an incinerator on the "never never" will burden our children and grandchildren and won’t solve the problem.

Well that's the election out of the way - now back to business

A nasty and rather bad-tempered bye-election campaign in our ward has resulted in a win for Asghar Khan, the Labour Party candidate.

Both of the parties likely to win here tried to use the anti-incinerator campaign to their advantage but neither would rule out the possibility of an incinerator here in the end.

We have been told by the winner Asghar Khan that he is personally not in favour of an incinerator at Cross Green but then neither are the Lib Dems, hardly surprising really since any other statement would have guaranteed the loss of a huge numbers of votes locally as they must surely have heard the very strong and vocal opposition here to the plan. 

However we may still end up with a plant there or at Knostrop even if all the councillors in this ward and most in the wards surrounding that are likely to be directly affected don’t agree because at the end of the day it will be the decision of the whole council which will decide the matter and other councillor’s first concern may very well be “well so long as they don’t build it in my nice area, what does it matter?”

We are repeatedly told that this is/was a heavily industrialised area in the past so does this mean that the not inconsiderable numbers of people currently packed into this area don’t count? Can you put what you like here now regardless of the effect on the area or its residents because these people have been treated badly in the past so it is alright to ignore them and dismiss their justifiable concerns now?

We, of course, don’t agree but this is not a NIMBY issue for us, we don’t want to inflict an incinerator on any other area of the city either nor do we don’t want to mire ourselves, our children or our grandchildren in debt paying for an outdated technology to burn scarce and valuable resources in an unsustainable way.

We ourselves have suggested several schemes to REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE waste together with schemes to get more kerbside collections of specific waste streams with a carrot and stick approach which would reduce even further the amount of waste which would have to be burned or sent to landfill.

We know that the Lib Dems spent almost £1M in getting the project to May 2009 (FOI request) and they themselves say that the Labour controlled council has or is going to spend £1M, though they don't provide proof of this figure, but with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (trying to stop the contract going to Veolia) raising legal questions and the chance that Veolia will appeal if stopped from bidding this whole thing could end up costing the Council Tax payers of Leeds a not so small fortune trying to back what we are totally convinced is the wrong horse.

Despite the fact that the plans are well advanced and that huge amounts of money have already been spent we feel that this is the wrong option financed in the wrong way and we will keep on campaigning to stop this expensive mistake from being made.

It is our hope that now the bye-election is over that this matter can be discussed in a more adult and sensible way. NO2Incinerator is not FOR or AGAINST Labour; it is not FOR or AGAINST the Lib Dems it is AGAINST INCINERATION! We will not stop our campaign on this matter, despite attempts to put pressure on us, to do so.  We will continue to gather information, publish views on this subject and hope to change the minds of those with the power to stop this project since we firmly believe, on so many different levels, that incineration is a 19th century technology that does not hold the solution to the 21st century's waste problem in the long term.