MMAG welcomes the decision of Central Bedfordshire Council to invite New Earth Solutions-Remondis Consortium and Viridor to enter the final stage of competition to secure the contract to deal with Central Bedfordshire’s future waste. Covanta were in the previous shortlist.
The Council, in common with authorities across the country, has been looking to develop a long term solution to managing waste in an environmentally sensitive and cost effective way.
Waste management is a specialist field and the Council has been conducting an extensive procurement exercise to find a private sector company to develop and deliver services and infrastructure in partnership with the Council.
In March 2011, the Council announced that it was working with four potential partners and since then has been working with the companies to progress the technical, legal and financial aspects of their proposed solutions.
Having now deselected two of the four bidders, the remaining two companies shortlisted to progress to the next stage will further refine and develop their proposals. Both of the shortlisted solutions involve the development of facilities at the Council owned site at Thorn Turn near Dunstable to meet the requirements of the contract.
Both of the solutions include:
- A treatment solution for dealing with the household waste that is left over after recycling, which delivers environmental improvements over disposing of this material to landfill;
- A solution for treating residents’ separately collected organic material, including kitchen and garden waste, to increase composting rates;
- One brand new and three refurbished Household Waste Recycling Centres designed to improve access and safety and provide increased opportunity for recycling;
- The provision of two gritting salt storage barns in strategic locations to cater for the Council’s storage requirements and enable the continued management of the road network during adverse weather.
Cllr Budge Wells, Assistant Executive Member for Sustainable Communities Services said:”I’m very pleased that this important project is progressing as planned and has now successfully completed another key milestone in delivering much needed infrastructure to provide a long term solution for the Council’s waste”.
“For the waste that cannot viably be recycled or composted, the remaining bidders have proposed modern solutions that will have a minimal impact on the local environment and deliver significant environmental benefits.”
“The Council remains committed to achieving its aim of recycling or composting 60% of its waste by 2020 and the proposed solutions will assist us in meeting this target.”
The final tenders stage will be completed by Autumn 2012, with a preferred bidder being selected. It is expected that following final due diligence contract award will take place at the end of the year.
This could be the beginning of the end for the Covanta proposal at Rookery Pit – thus far they don’t have enough customers to make it economic or the worst of all worlds in that we deal with our waste at Dunstable and everyone else’s at Rookery Pit !
