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

Nuneaton council force to make waste for 32 years

Coventry, Warwickshire and Solihull councils are working on a new Private Finance Initiative (PFI) waste incinerator for Coventry. This will have an even bigger capacity that the existing waste burner and double the cost per tonne of waste.

The projected waste growth over the next 36 years used to justify the plant are just plane mad. With greater recycling and less packaging we need to bury or burn less waste every year.

I have just found out details of a legally binding agreement that they expect the waste collection authorities (i.e. district councils like Nuneaton & Bedworth) that will force them to produce a tonnage of residual waste each year to match the stupid projection. Worst still the energy content of the waste will have to be kept around 9MJ per Kg. These rules will stop us increasing recycling in future and may require Nuneaton to stop some of its recycling in future if the too little waste is left.

see full contract http://tinyurl.com/wccmou