Battlefield incinerator fight is lost
A last-ditch legal challenge to stop the building of a controversial £60 million waste incinerator in Shrewsbury has been scrapped.
Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth has dropped its bid to force a judicial review of Shropshire Council’s contract with waste management giant Veolia.
The environmental group said it had concerns about the costs it would face if it lost the case.
It means Veolia will now be able to go ahead with the start of work on the incinerator in Battlefield, with construction scheduled to start in the next few weeks.
Dave Green, a spokesman for Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth, said the group had decided to drop the appeal after being warned by Shropshire Council’s lawyers that it would be pursued for costs.
The organisation had lodged papers with the Administrative Court in Birmingham and was waiting for a decision on a protective costs order, setting a maximum limit for what they could be charged.
The FoE had wanted the building of the incinerator to be postponed to allow the financial case for the Energy from Waste facility to be examined by an independent judge.
But before the costs order decision was made, the organisation agreed to drop its overall case after assessing its chances of success.
Mr Green said: “Obviously we are very disappointed but sometimes you just have to be realistic.
“We still think it is crazy for Shropshire Council to proceed with this at a time where they are having to find further cuts to make.”
He said the decision was not taken lightly.
“It was an assessment of the risks we were taking against the likelihood of success.
“The risks seemed to be building up, but the chance of success seemed to have dropped.”
Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth was one of the groups that opposed the building of the incinerator at last year’s public inquiry.
The incinerator is scheduled to be open by 2015 and will deal with 90,000 tonnes of waste a year.
Comments for: "Battlefield incinerator fight is lost"
Liam
Lets all email Daniel Kawczynski, see if he will keep his pledge to lay down in front of the construction vehicles.
Ed
This is awful for the poor people who live near it. And it makes recycling pointless.
Ian
I do live nearby and I for one is over the moon ! More job for everyone !
Jenny
Why does it make recycling pointless? This will take all the waste that would normally go to landfills
Will he have the balls!
Yeah come on Danny boy, lay down your life for the people! This could be a fantastic charity raising event!
Mark L
Good, I'm pleased something is positive is finally being done to deal with the amount of waste produced every year. The population keeps increasing, the amount of waste keeps increasing, recycling is done on such a tiny scale it will never keep up and there is no where near enough room in the land fill sites. For those who think this is a bad idea can you please come up with a sensible plan to get rid of 90,000 tones of waste a year? In the meantime, keep recycling as much as possible but also crank up the incinerator, at least this way we can use the heat to produce electricity.
Doubter
Here Here.
H. St. John Peasbody
Where, where?
Doubter
Here in Shrewsbury !!
Still no word from i'll lie in the road to block it, Danny K can wait to see him keep his word and break the law :)
Robin Hood
Well done Friends of the Earth for pursuing it this far.
And not so well done to Shropshire Council - claiming to be against the proposal, doing little to stop it and then threatening a local charity with financial ruin......although not surprising either.
If our MP is our last hope I think we can safely say that the incinerator will be coming to a town near you soon.....
Jenny
The council weren't against it, get your facts straight. This was all part of the original contract drawn up with veolia when they started working together
eddie
This is a dark day for Shropshire,not enough waste in shropshire for it to be vioble.waste from all over the country will be dumped here.Well done Shropshire council.(A Veolia Employee).
Sally Jaundrell
We have a similar problem in northwich cheshire - tata e-on have permission to build an incinerator at lostock - we too are over subscribed with incinerators - our waste is on the decline and we have no need for another incincerator - rubbish will be 'imported' to us too. Who will be making the profit? What will they actually be burning? Where is it all going to come from!!
buzz
Lets just see how much the the local property values drop when this disgrace is built, and i dont suppose there will be any compensation from the council.. they will soon be on the door when it comes to voting.
Robin Hood
It would be a different matter if it was proposed for Radbrook.......I think Shropshire Council would have worked harder if that was the case.
People in the part of town next to the incinerator count less..............perhaps because fewer Shropshire Councillors and local authority top brass live there?
Dave Green
At the public inquiry Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth gave plenty of evidence that the incinerator isn't needed and that there are much better ways of dealing with our waste. Unfortunately the Inspector chose to give these aspects little weight. Our overall waste levels are falling and recycling rates have risen much faster than anyone expected. We now have collections for paper, plastics and garden waste. Veolia already have plans for collecting kitchen waste and cardboard can be taken to multiple sites. With every year the amount that can be recycled increases but we'll be stuck with this oversized incinerator for 25 plus years. It is also very inefficient, even worse than the villified coal fired power stations. After the electricity is produced the excess heat will be thrown away. So the questions aren't 'what else to do with the waste' but 'what are they going to burn' and 'how can they get away with it'.
Driver
Well said Mark Let's get it built, enough time and money has been wasted.
Most of the objectors do not even live near it?
Mike
I have said it before, and I say it again now. May we please have a complete list of the names of our local councillors who voted for this ridiculous monstrosity?
This will help us decide on who we want to run our councils on any coming elections.
Michael Dawes
Veolia claimed to have spent the best part of £750,000 on the appeal if recall correctly. The council spent £65,000 defending the members decision to refuse, a tenfold difference in scale of resource. A judicial review is now abandoned because of cost considerations. It seems that the depth of the pocket is now the main consideration when determining a public interest decision. Was it not Lord Denning who commented that the law is like the Savoy Hotel..open to all.
Rupert Barrington-Black
Denning made the comment about the Ritz..
other judges have said similar,
Darling J is supposed to have said, "The law, like the tavern, is open to all"
Lord Justice Matthew almost a century ago, “In England justice is open to all, like the Ritz”.
green guru
this will be a big regret in years to come when incineration and carbon taxes render this technology even more expensive and advanced gasification type processes combined deliver significantly cleaner and more sustainable and affordable alternatives. Clearly the council has been badly advised with this procurement process and we as taxpayers will be paying the bill for years to come.
gaz
Not happy about this, these things dont dispose of waste they just transform it into air pollution and ash which gets landfilled or enhaled by the public respectively, they are terrible for the environment as they produce more co2 than gas fired power stations they are actually making the climate change situation WORSE than landfilling waste! utterly utterly insane and out of touch, these people should be sacked at the next election and this contract should be ripped up, how can you trust a company that are so incompetent as to be unable to figure out a way to collect cardboard despite being paid to do so, they should be sacked along with the parasites at the council who waste our money on I pads and traffic islands
Squadie
So councils got money to burn? But still cant collect my green bin tho
eva land
Robin Hood- have you not ever noticed that we already have an incinerator on London Road?
It's called the Crematorium and has been there for 40 years + at least 15 of which should have been with an upgraded chimney to modern standards.
Michael Dawes- our council was warned that not honouring the contract/deal made with Veolia would cost US getting on for 1 million pounds and I believe it has actually cost US £850,000 which will take us many many years to pay off.
Keith Barrow says it is the price we pay for democracy and protesters should have considered the consequences but is that true?
It sounds like he is excusing our councillors from making tough decisions based on pragmatism and facts. Instead our elected members choose to appear noble and decide to support what was in reality a minority of public opinion.
The whole system of so called democracy is based on us electing ordinary people we apparently trust to make good and legally sound decisions on our behalf.
As those elected ordinary people are paid these days they have what seems a brilliant job.
If you make the wrong decisions you don;t go bankrupt (not quite yet anyway) or get fired, you just blame the very people you represent and who then continue to pay your allowances.
Kev
an automated recycling plant would be 10% of that cost and produce ZERO emissions this is the wrong technology at the wrong time in the wrong place, this is being funded by OUR taxes, effectively veolia is taxing us to boost their profits its daylight robbery which simply has no mandate and its outrageous
Patrick Cosgrove
All one can do now is prevent as much combustable waste as possible going into the black bins and, if you live near the Welsh border and shop in Wales, take a lot of it to the skips there. It's like bailing out the Titanic with a teaspoon, but it makes you feel a little better.
Irene Lysons
I think the incinerator is an excellent idea. We need electricity and we have rubbish. A few people will be inconvenienced but then some people are inconvenienced near landfill sites. I wish everyone would remember that it is their waste that we need to get rid of. I congratulate the scientists who have made this possible.