ALMOST £200 million is being put forward to fund new waste management facilities in the county - which will do away with the need to bury rubbish in landfill.

Defra has already awarded Gloucestershire County Council £92 million to kick start the project, which will see a private firm take over the management of the facility as part of a Private Finance Initiative.

Councillors have not yet revealed what kind of facility will be built, or where it will be located - although one possible site is Javelin Park in Stonehouse.

Another alternative is to have several smaller sites spread out across the county.

The project is part of the Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy, which has been adopted by the county and the six districts.

The strategy, which is heavily focussed on reducing, reusing, recycling and composting, is being hailed as an environmentally friendly and financially sustainable way to deal with the county’s waste.

Cllr Stan Waddington, cabinet member for the environment, said: “Naturally, we are very, very pleased.

“Even when the county reaches its target of at least 60 per cent recycling and composting by 2020, the remaining 40 per cent still has to be managed.

“New waste facilities will mean we no longer need to bury our rubbish in landfill, which damages the environment.

“Landfill produces methane gas, which is 21 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.”

Gloucestershire landfills around 190,000 tonnes of household rubbish every year - costing the county around £6.4 million in landfill tax, which is currently set at £32 per tonne.

This figure is set to increase to £48 per tonne by 2010, and every year the Government decreases the amount of waste councils can put into landfill, resulting in fines of up to £150 per tonne for every tonne over the limit.

“The council has to pay heavy taxes and potential fines to the Government for the waste sent to landfill,” continued Mr Waddington, (Con, Minchinhampton, Nailsworth).

“These are becoming impossible to manage with the current county council budget, and will have a direct impact on council tax and other services in the future.”

GCC is now informing companies in the waste industry to come forward with bids to take over the management of the plant by early next year, although a decision on the technology and location of the facility will take around two years.

PFI involves the council teaming up with a private firm to fund, build and manage a major project on its behalf, and then paying them back for the provision of all associated services over a long period of time.

The scheme is designed to cut out the one-off expense of large-scale projects that would lead to unpopular tax rises.

Councillor Martin Whiteside, Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Stroud said he welcomed an end to the reliance on landfill, but said GCC should favour smaller, decentralised treatment facilities, rather than a single large plant at Javelin Park.

He also criticised to use of PFI - saying the scheme will not offer long term value for money, and is likely to cost the tax payer more in the long run.

“The County Council should run a proper public consultation exercise on this. It is hiding behind a ‘commercial bidders will decide'

approach - this is not good enough,” he said.

“We should make much more ambitious assumptions about how much we can reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place - that would mean smaller treatment facilities with less cost and less environmental impact.”

Would you welcome new waste facilities in the Stroud area? Do you have concerns about the long term costs of PFI projects?

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