Flexibility is key. That’s the message from LCRN to councils across the capital and beyond.
It comes in the wake of the decision by The North London Waste Authority (NLWA) (Chair: Cllr Clyde Loakes) to ditch plans to procure two major waste contracts worth a combined £3billion.
The announcement comes after a seven-year procurement process that would have seen two contracts awarded, one for waste services and one for fuel use.
A spokeswoman confirmed the tender has cost the authority a total of £21million, including £18million on external advisors. However, the decision not to award the contract will reportedly save £900million over 27 years.
Following a meeting of councillors last week, the authority confirmed it was set to continue using its current energy-from-waste (EfW) facility at Edmonton, which can remain operational until "at least 2025".
LCRN’s development manager Mike Webster thinks this demonstrates the importance of flexibility in procuring waste infrastructure:
“A 27-year contact is an incredibly long time and it’s very difficult or predict the amount and type of waste that will be produced. If you look back 27 years and see how the industry has changed,” insists Webster. Back then, the waste sector was focused on cutting costs, privatisation of collection high on the political agenda and landfill, was still the choice for most municipal waste.
“We have moved to a resource economy. Today waste is not discarded but has become either a raw material for secondary manufacture or a fuel for energy-from-waste solutions.
“Those local authorities that have flexibility in their contracts have benefited from higher incomes as resource scarcity has begun to bite. Take textiles, for instance. Who would have thought that textile waste would have gone from around £50 a tonne to around 10 times that ten years ago?"
“For most local authorities the idea of fixing their costs was paramount but many have lost millions by outsourcing waste disposal.”
So is it time to bring the service back under direct control or at the very least outsource the service for a much shorter time, maybe five years, per contract?
Webster believes local authority staff are far more sophisticated today than ever before. They have learned the lessons of the past and are the experts in waste disposal.
“Why should the waste companies make a killing while councils get very little? he asks.
k.martin@poplarharca.co.uk
It comes in the wake of the decision by The North London Waste Authority (NLWA) (Chair: Cllr Clyde Loakes) to ditch plans to procure two major waste contracts worth a combined £3billion.
The announcement comes after a seven-year procurement process that would have seen two contracts awarded, one for waste services and one for fuel use.
A spokeswoman confirmed the tender has cost the authority a total of £21million, including £18million on external advisors. However, the decision not to award the contract will reportedly save £900million over 27 years.
Following a meeting of councillors last week, the authority confirmed it was set to continue using its current energy-from-waste (EfW) facility at Edmonton, which can remain operational until "at least 2025".
LCRN’s development manager Mike Webster thinks this demonstrates the importance of flexibility in procuring waste infrastructure:
“A 27-year contact is an incredibly long time and it’s very difficult or predict the amount and type of waste that will be produced. If you look back 27 years and see how the industry has changed,” insists Webster. Back then, the waste sector was focused on cutting costs, privatisation of collection high on the political agenda and landfill, was still the choice for most municipal waste.
“We have moved to a resource economy. Today waste is not discarded but has become either a raw material for secondary manufacture or a fuel for energy-from-waste solutions.
“Those local authorities that have flexibility in their contracts have benefited from higher incomes as resource scarcity has begun to bite. Take textiles, for instance. Who would have thought that textile waste would have gone from around £50 a tonne to around 10 times that ten years ago?"
“For most local authorities the idea of fixing their costs was paramount but many have lost millions by outsourcing waste disposal.”
So is it time to bring the service back under direct control or at the very least outsource the service for a much shorter time, maybe five years, per contract?
Webster believes local authority staff are far more sophisticated today than ever before. They have learned the lessons of the past and are the experts in waste disposal.
“Why should the waste companies make a killing while councils get very little? he asks.
k.martin@poplarharca.co.uk
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