Cov & Warks PFI Protest at Treasury

On Tuesday, 19^th May, I lead at protest at the treasury in Whitehall against the approval of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding for an even bigger incinerator in Coventry.

The Treasury does not take letters or emails from the public when deciding to award over £100m to the private sector to run a billion pound 25-year waste contract. Unlike small matters of planning the public has no ability to object to the awarding of vast contracts. The projections used to model the Coventry incinerator are wildly inaccurate even for the amount of waste produced in the past two years. The error between reality for the total waste produced and the business plan for 2008/9 will be between 50,000 and 100,000 tonnes of waste produced. For every 10,000 tonnes of waste that does not need burning £1million a year could be saved.

I feel we have not had a fair hearing, which is not surprising. The anti-recycling officer at Coventry city council has been awarded a new £63-£70K job in the days before they went to the treasury panel. Such a lucrative post only exists because of the incinerator PFI. The Treasury panel is also unlikely to be against a PFI as it is chaired by Charles Lloyd. He works for PricewaterhouseCoopers as head of PFI and has been lent out to push PFI at the Treasury.  PricewaterhouseCoopers also were paid by Coventry and Warwickshire councils to do the early work on the PFI. I obtained this report under the freedom of information act only after appealing to the information commissioner.

In order to protest at Westminster I had to apply for permission under the serious and organised crime act. This did mean it was legal to shout very loudly about the corruption going on inside.

This PFI will go badly wrong as it is based on flawed business case and reality will come back and bite. I just hope a billion pound contract is not signed before they find out its all wrong. I would have thought that the mess of the Coventry Hospital PFI would have been a lesson.

see full story at http://ukwin.org.uk/2009/05/20/pfi-protest-at-treasury/

and  http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=240&listitemid=7220

labour stop me speaking!

It seems that election ‘silly season’ started on the 29^th April when County Councillor June Tandy banned me from speaking at the Abbey and Wembrook ward forum. I know the chair of the meeting has the power to chose who speaks and to keep discussion relevant but I did not expect to be savaged for just raising my hand after everyone else had spoken. If permitted I would have told the community forum about the Air Quality Monitoring Zone to be set up at Abbey Green where the area regularly breaches EU safety limits. The pollution from queuing traffic will be shortening the lives of those who live in zone. I would have told the community that the issue is going to come up at the borough council in the next few months and how they can get involved in suggesting solutions.

Three months before last years elections the labour councillors were aware of the planned hazardous waste plant at Judkins. I know, as, using the Freedom of Information act, I have obtained the emails sent to the planning officer. During last years election some in the Labour party chose to keep quiet about what was being planned at Judkins as they did not want it to be an election issue. The Tories can be just as bad and we will have to wait for details of Alan Farnell’s agreement with WRG (owners of the Judkins site) to block the hazardous waste plant. I wait to see what new bad news we get after the elections when we will be stuck with the councillors for another 4 years.

Keith Kondakor
Green Party County Council Election Candidate for Abbey Ward & environmental campaigner

c/o 19 Gloucester Close, Nuneaton
024 76 344 079