Javelin Park - Proposed Incinerator?
The cost of the land was £7.4 million, excluding stamp duty land tax. The land will be offered as a potential site, which may be used for any new residual waste facilities. The waste industry can suggest alternative and additional sites if they wish to. No final decisions will be made on whether Javelin Park will be used or what sort of facilities will be built until 2011. The purchase of the site increases the opportunity for more solutions to the residual waste disposal problem because it allows companies to bid without owning a waste site in the county already, which levels the playing field.
After lengthy negotiations, Gloucestershire County Council has agreed the purchase of part of the site at Javelin Park. The site was identified as a strategic waste site in the Waste Local Plan published in 2004. The council announced in 2006 its intention to purchase the site and that it may be used for a waste facility.
Residual waste is the rubbish left over once we have reduced, reused, recycled and composted as much as possible - the real rubbish. Currently this real rubbish is sent to landfill. However, this is not environmentally sustainable as landfill releases harmful greenhouse gases contributing to global warming. Councils across the country are also being charged heavy taxes and penalties by central government on waste put into landfill.
Cllr Stan Waddington explained: "Securing the land at Javelin Park means that we can comply fully with the Government's requirements for funding an alternative to landfill in Gloucestershire. It is good news for local taxpayers as it means we can secure £92m of PFI credits from central government, which was conditional on the council owning a site. It also helps level the playing field for those companies who do not already own a waste site in Gloucestershire and want to bid for the contract. It does not mean that this is the only site we are looking at by any means - it is only one option, something the site has always been since it was put in the Waste Local Plan in 2004."
The next step will be for the county council to ask the waste industry to submit their ideas on how to deal with Gloucestershire's real rubbish in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Further information on the residual waste project is available at - Recycling project
Gloucestershire Against Incinerators
Click here to find out more - - GLOS-ain