Burning Issues

Created by Clive

The former RAF Quedgeley site has been proposed by the Gloucestershire County Council as one of two possible sites for the building of a giant incinerator (site #2 is at Javelin Park, Haresfield).

The incinerator would be capable of burning 90,000 tonnes of waste a year and has been proposed as an alternative to landfill… this despite the fact that their manifesto promised not to introduce incinerators, and instead look at other methods of disposal.

Local Politicians have joined forces to block the proposal, voicing concerns including what will be done with the resulting toxic ash, increased levels of waste being “dumped on Gloucester”, the theory that incineration “undermines recycling by relying on waste to make a profit” and “a need to ‘feed the beast’, meaning waste which could be recycled, will be burned”.

Parmjit Dhanda MP for Gloucester has created an online petition.

The county will make their decision next April.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 11:26 am and is filed under Refuse & Recycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Burning Issues”

Joe K Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 3:17 am
Actually, not in April:

Katherine Webb:

“Mary Newton’s comments regarding 27 days is relating to the time potential bidders had to submit a pre qualification questionnaire (PQQ). This is the first part of the procurement process. It does not deal with technologies or sites, but is just concerned with the technical, legal and financial standing of the bidders to asses their capability of delivering the contract.
Mary Newton has misinterpreted this process and has concluded that the County Council is requesting bidders to come forward with their full solutions by the PQQ deadline.
In reality, the County Council will be requesting outline solutions in May. Those making it through this part will then be asked to submit detailed solutions in September.
No decisions will be made until 2011. Further consultation will then be carried out when the specifics of location and technology have been finalised as part of the planning process.”
Clive Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Hi Joe,

Thanks for the additional information.

Bear in mind that the above article was written in December 2007, so I guess April 2008 was “Plan A”
Joe K Says:
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:28 am
Well either that, or someone’s telling porkies. I can’t tell who wrote the article above, but that “dumped on Gloucester” line looks very familiar.

Of course, the ‘decision’ may have been ‘RAF Quedgeley or Javelin Park’, but from the meeting at the end of last year, I recall Stan Waddington saying that the location had still not been finalised, any more than the technology. I think if the Council had been forced to postpone plans, the opposition would have made more of that.

There’s just so much political advantage-seeking over this issue that some (quite desperate) people aren’t above creating their own truth.
Clive Says:
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:30 am
I wrote it

The “dumped in Gloucester” comment was a quote (as shown)… if I recall correctly I was quoting from a leaflet issued by / on behalf of Parmjit Dhanda MP, (as were many of the details).

You’re absolutely right about the “political advantage-seeking”
Shortly after I wrote the above post, I considered creating a more comprehensive article and asked Cllr Jackie Hall for some information, which she very kindly supplied (in spades – lol).
I spent some 20+ hours reading reports, meeting minutes and websites representing many of the concerned parties, and finally decided against it!
Having seen the issues and the lengths to which some have gone in order to make this more of a Political than an environmental issue, I’m not at all suprised at the “progress”.