VEOLIA COMMUNITY LIAISON GROUP STARTS THIS THURSDAY !!!!!!!!!!!!

Has anybody else received an email from VEOLIA saying that the first Community Liaison Meeting is on THURSDAY 2nd of February?


Even though the email the chair of No2 Incinerator received didn’t have even a the name of the venue in it we have ascertained that the meeting is to be held at

RICHMOND HILL COMMUNITY CENTRE. 7PM THURSDAY 2nd FEBRUARY.

Call us conspiracy theorists – but strangely enough the Inner East Area Committee is on the same evening – starting at 5pm at Civic Hall. So non of our elected councillors will be able to get there on time and neither will No2 Incinerator as we never miss the Inner East as it is vital to keep abreast with what our councillors are deciding on our behalf. Especially as a papers are being presented on health in East Leeds, Policing Priorities (and no doubt cuts) and a very interesting paper written by the area management team about priorities for 2012 - 2013.

If you haven’t received notification of this liaison group meeting and like us thought you had like us signed up for the community consultation – ring them on this freephone number and let them know how you feel.



0800 085 8980

A days notice of a community meeting is insulting – but so is building a huge Incinerator in our ward. Is it a sign of things to come........... not if we all pull together AND COMPLAIN.


Sarah Covell, No2 Incinerator.  

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.

The Candidates, the Incinerator and the local elections



Asghar Khan Labour Candidate

Well at last we have the Labour Party candidate’s position on the building of an incinerator in East Leeds which can best be summed up as not at Cross Green it is too near housing and will annoy too many voters but not ruling out the Knostrop site and anyway we would not be in this mess if the Lib Dems hadn’t started this project in the first place. 

David Hollingsworth Lib Dem Candidat



  

In this respect at least it seems that they are in a  very similar position to the Lib Dems, as they too do not want an incinerator on Cross Green for, we imagine, the very same reasons but they also would be prepared to put up with one at Knostrop, whilst pointing out that the other two incinerators in our area already are also at Knostrop and that they where built by the then Labour administration 20 years ago.

As you know this is not the position of the NO2Incinerator campaign. We oppose the building of an incinerator full stop! We are convinced that this plant would prove to be grotesquely expensive particularly using a PFI formula to pay for it; that its inflexibility would make it unable to adapt  to changing conditions and lifestyles and that its very presence would stop attempts to reduce, reuse and recycle household waste.  Local enterprises which would provide many more local jobs as well as helping the environment and offering a more sustainable long term solution.

An incinerator will provide few, if any local jobs, even in the construction phase, as there is no mechanism to allocate jobs to local firms since such a huge project will go out to tender and large multi national construction companies will bid for the work. When completed there will be only a handful of low skilled jobs on offer and a similar amount of highly skilled specialist jobs which local people will not have the necessary skills to apply for.

For us this is NOT a party political issue it is about the right technology to solve this difficult and ongoing problem; quality of life for residents of East Leeds; the effects of this project on the future regeneration potential of our area and the cost and sustainability of the project for Council Tax payers across Leeds as a whole.

It seems from a careful reading of the election leaflets we have received so far that neither of the two  most likely winners of the local election in our area is willing to say that they are against the building of another incinerator in our area. They both seem to us to be resigned to having an incinerator at Knostrop and each is busy trying to sell us the idea that it is all the other party’s fault.

We however don’t believe that it is inevitable; we think that any fair review of the Waste Stream Plan will show that the situation has changed markedly over the last 6 years since the project was first conceived, industry, government and educational initiatives have each brought about steady changes in actions and attitudes from ordinary people and these will go on changing rapidly for the foreseeable future. Committing ourselves to an inflexible 25 year plan in an ever shifting waste disposal climate is reckless, bull-headed and very likely to be an expensive mistake.

We have not so far received anything from either the Convervative candidate nor the Green Party candidate but when we do we will let you know where they stand on this issue.

Right, onward and upward!

Here are some of the founding members of the NO2Incinerator campaign team at one of our regular meetings at the Hope Inn on York Road where we are always sure of a very warm welcome from the landlord and his staff.

We meet regularly to share information and ideas for the campaign and to work out our strategy for the next few weeks.

Our meetings are advertised on our Blog and all are welcome to come along and offer ideas and support.

We will be posting details of our next meeting within the next few days and hope to see as many of you as possible there.

Biffa, despite assuring us that they were ready to put in their planning application have so far failed to do so, a situation that surely cannot last much longer. The city council also are still intent on having their incinerator in our ward, but again no further exact details are available at the moment.

We will keep everyone updated on developments and in the meantime the fight will go on, we don't really have a choice about that if we don't want to become the incinerator quarter of Leeds.

Issue 3 September 2010 Newsletter

Welcome to the 3rd issue of our monthly Newsletter keeping the residents of East Leeds in touch with the latest news on the proposed incinerators in our area.

Our 2nd Public Meeting was held at Richmond Hill Primary School at 7pm on Monday 13 September and a large number of residents turned out to have their say.

Apologies were received from Cllr Tom Murray, Chair of Executive Board for Neighbourhoods & Environments and Richard Brett, local ward councillor. No apologies were received from Neil Evans, Director of Neighbourhoods & Environments but he did send Susan Upton, Head of Waste Management and her team to answer questions which residents felt she had not adequately answered before, Cllr Ann Blackburn, Leader of the Green Party also attended.

A large crowd of residents listened to an introduction and presentation from Sarah Covell from the NO2Incinerator campaign. With the use of both amplification and visuals the residents were able to take a more active part in the meeting and some very searching questions were put to the panel. There to record the events of the evening were both EAST LEEDS FM and John Baron from GUARDIAN LEEDS, these vibrant locally based members of the media have shown a keen interest in this hot issue.

Cllr Ron Grahame was in attendance as was former ward councillor, David Hollingsworth. Both heard the residents state their strong opposition to an incinerator at either Cross Green or Knostrop, either or both of which the residents felt would be damaging to their health, community and their children's future.

Cllr Blackburn explained her party's position on incineration, they're against it, and she suggested several other technologies which would be better suited to the city. The Waste Management team said they felt incineration was the best method at the price but that whilst price was not the overriding factor, the split was 60% process, 40% price, it was a concideration. The residents clearly felt that price had been the deciding factor above the quality of life for local communities.

When asked about compensation for the residents most directly impacted by these plants Cllr Blackburn explained that there is no mechanism for any kind of compensation for the negative impact of the plants on the area and it was not even possible to object to the plants at the planning stage on these grounds either as they do not match planning criteria.

A DEFRA report was circulated at the meeting by the Waste Management team stating that studies had shown that there were no negative health impact from incinerators, however there are many other studies showing a different point of view and internationally renowned scientists such as Prof. Paul Connett strongly disagree with these assertions.

Since the meeting we have discovered that a peer review by the Royal Society was carried out on this document ends with a quite damning assertion on how reliable the report is. There is even a paragraph called uncertainties which recommends it not be used by local authorities to make policy decisions - even though that's what the report's author says it should be used for! It also states that it is based on very few scientific studies (i.e the ones that count) and the data it relies on seems to be predominantly sourced from non scientific government papers and even data from waste companies themselves.

One resident pointed out the amount of air polution in the Aire Valley already which can be seen in the area on still days and asked how much more pollution would be added if these two plants got the go ahead, again Susan Upton and her team had no definite answers but they cannot be in any doubt that one again they have failed to convince those of us who are most immediately affected by the operation of these plants either of their benefits to us as a community or to the city either.

Residents from across the city attended this meeting and one pointed out that we were being asked to take a lot on trust, trust we did not have. She pointed out the area where she lived, Armley, had once been assured that plants like Turner & Newall were safe however by the time it became apparent this was not true the damage had been done. Sometimes the long term health impacts of industry do not become clear until many years after the damage has been done, Cllr Blackburn agreed but the Waste Management team again re-iterated that they were not aware of any studies indicating adverse effects from modern incinertors - well maybe they are not looking in the right places because such studies are certainly out there.

The meeting ended with a vote of the residents present which was unanimously against incinerators in the Lower Aire Valley.

Our campaign is going from strength to strength, gaining more and more knowledge and more and more support across the city and beyond, because this problem is a citywide problem, one way or another the people of Leeds will be impacted by these incinerators either by being under the plume or by having to pay and pay and pay for outdated, inflexible technology which will prevent the people of Leeds from joining the 21st century or both.

Modern technology is changing so fast new solutions are being found for old problems almost daily but if we go down this route we will be tied to outdated methods of dealing with waste for the next 25/30 years, there will be positive dis-incentives to recycle and valuable and finite resources with be burnt just to keep these plants open.

Footnote: We would like to add a heartfelt thank you to all who made contributions both financial and in kind to the campaign with a special thank you to Julie Jones for manning the tea and refreshment trolley.

We will let you know what is planned next but please note that as well as a Blog we now have a Facebook and Twitter page so add us to your friends and get up to the minute information.

What do we know so far

£68.6 million has been put aside by the government to help the council build a facility to deal with the waste that is not recycled.

In July 2008, the council advertised a contract to build and run a ‘residual waste treatment facility’. By January 2009, eight bidders had put forward proposals. The council short-listed to four proposals in April 2009, and the to two in February 2010.

The process to buy this facility is both site and technology neutral. This means the council has never had a preference for a particular site or technology treatment.

The final two bidders are:

■Aire Valley Environmental who are proposing to build a facility at the current Knostrop sewage treatment site
■Veolia ES Aurora Ltd who are proposing to build a facility at the former wholesale market on Cross Green industrial estate
In the coming years the key dates are:

■Summer 2010 – Public consultation to inform final proposals
■Autumn 2010 – Final proposals from two bidders
■Summer 2011 – Successful bidder chosen
■Autumn 2011 – Bidder submits planning application
■Autumn 2011 – Public consultation on planning application begins
■Autumn 2012 – Planning decision
■Autumn 2012 – Construction begins
■Summer/Autumn 2015 – Facility starts processing waste

source:LCC Municipal Waste Strategy