The proposed incinerator site at Saddlebow. Picture: Ian Burt.

Shipdham-based BAM Nuttall given civil engineering contract for King’s Lynn incinerator

By DAVID BLACKMORE Tuesday, January 24, 2012
5:41 PM

An Anglo-US waste consortium hoping to build a controversial incinerator on the edge of King’s Lynn has awarded a civil engineering contract for the scheme, it was announced today.

Cory Wheelabrator has selected Shipdham-based BAM Nuttall to carry out the civil engineering work for the £500m scheme.

If Norfolk County Council approves the incinerator plan, the consortium has said more than 1,000 jobs could be created over the 32-month construction phase.

BAM Nuttall now wants to recruit subcontractors to deliver a number of the project’s engineering requirements, including piling and associated foundations, steelworks, cladding and ground works.

If built, the Willows power and recycling centre on the Saddlebow industrial estate would be capable of treating up to 268,000 tonnes of household and commercial waste from across Norfolk every year.

Norfolk County Council selected Cory Wheelabrator as its preferred bidder to construct the incinerator in March last year, despite a borough council poll which showed 65,000 people in West Norfolk were against it.

David Brothers, business development manager at BAM Nuttall, said: “We are very pleased to have been selected to deliver the civil engineering work for the proposed Willows power and recycling centre at King’s Lynn.

“We are liaising with existing suppliers of goods and building service, but we’re also keen to speak with firms from across Norfolk and the eastern region about a range of subcontracting opportunities.”

It comes after Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman announced last Wednesday that she had approved £91m in Waste Infrastructure Grant funding towards the cost of the plant.

West Norfolk council is currently preparing to apply for a judicial review, claiming Ms Spelman broke her own guidelines in awarding the money because there is not a “broad consensus of support” for an incinerator.

Anti-incinerator campaigners last month attempted to secure a judicial review into the process by which the county council agreed to award a contract to waste company Cory Wheelabrator but a High Court judge dismissed their attempt.

Paul Green, speaking on behalf of the Cory Wheelabrator consortium added: “We are delighted to make this appointment as we’re committed to working with local businesses.

“This is just the start of numerous contract awards which we hope will be available to local businesses in the future.

“I’d urge all businesses interested in working with us to get in touch as soon as possible. We will shortly be hosting two business open days at the Eco-Tech Centre in Swaffham, where business leaders can find out more about the project, the skills and experience we are looking to hire.”

The open days are being held on Thursday from 4pm to 8pm and Friday from 7.30am to 10pm. The registration deadline is tomorrow morning. To register an interest in the project, e-mail info@willowsprc.co.uk

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40 comments

I've just booked my car in for a MOT but I haven't bought it yet!! Doesn't that sound a bit like awarding a contract for work on an incinerator that Cory Wheelabrator haven't signed their contract for yet?

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Christine

Monday, January 30, 2012
Freethinker, I spent most of yesterday evening writing a thesis answering your questions. Unfortunately, it appears to have disappeared into cyberspace. To save myself having to repeat the exercise, can I just suggest you look at 'farmerscampaign.org' andor 'klwin.com'? You may also wish to google 'nanoparticles toxicity incinerators' and browse the results. Keep on researching, I wish everyone would. Nanoparticles are nasty! Especially those from municipal incinerators!

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Barking

Friday, January 27, 2012
Nano particles are equivalent to asbestos. Once these partials enter your body they are there for life. If the health study finds a link to birth defects all incinerators will have to close down. I do not see the all mighty rush to build before the results will be available. India has completed a study and there is a link. They have gone one step further and found workers in your modern incinerator have problems with their DNA due to breathing in Bottom ash!

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Choice

Friday, January 27, 2012
Dear Freethinker, I'm rather puzzled how a person who claims superior research skills on the basis of having gone to the riverside incinerator and been overwhelmed by the purity of the environment could be so ignorant of the basics. Do you not have access to google? Assuming you do, try googling 'nanoparticle toxicity incinerator' you'll find lots of interesting sites and facts. If you don't have google, try 'farmerscampaign.org' or 'klwin.com' They have lots of interesting facts as well. Alternatives to incineration include recycling (could be massively improved in this area and would permanently employ ten times the number of people the incinerator would, at a lower total cost (and the money would remain in the local economy rather than pouring into the coffers of a multinational company) (they would also be employed longer than the people of Bam Nuttall and associates), while saving four times the energy that the so-called 'energy from waste' monstrosity would produce. Carbon emissions (and their equivalent) would be lower. There is also mbt (mechanical and biological treatment) - again this has a far lower capitalisation requirement ( ie. it's cheaper to build - nearly half the cost of the Monstrosity is in the filtering equipment thas is not necessary with mtb and recycling as one is not creating such concentrations of environmental toxins) And to save you regurgitating the spin that the filters will remove all the toxins - don't forget the google button! Nanoparticles are created in high temperature combustion environments (eg diesel engines, fires of any sort and especially incinerators. The higher the temperature, the finer the particles, the more toxic they are likely to be. The incinerator would have the added 'bonus' of putting a wide range of toxic metals into the nano particles, again increasing the toxicity. Just because power stations produce nanoparticles doesn't mean we should increase the concentrations in the air with an even more toxic variety. Cory Wheelabrator are hoping to pump over 500 tons of material into the atmosphere over King's Lynn every day for 25 years. And that's only 75% of what is put into the burner. The other 25% still has to go to landfill (though as a 'hazardous material' 10% of which is the highly toxic 'fly ash' - the filters have to put what they catch somewhere - most of these toxins will have been extracted from stable, easily recycled materials that could have been re-used, or reprocessed into useful material.) Apart from satisfying NCC's apparently insatiable urge to give money to other countries (I wasn't going to mention Iceland - honest!) There are absolutely no benefits to be gained from proceeding with this outdated project, but an awful lot of negatives. Keep researching - I wish everyone would!

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Barking

Thursday, January 26, 2012
These are paragraphs from Part A: Supplementary Planning Application Supporting Statement. Mad Brewer 4.5.6 Importantly, the Proposal will represent only one of a number of residual waste treatment facilities that will be required to meet the requirement set out in Policy CS4. As such it will not preclude sites coming forward in other areas of the County. 4.5.4 The East of England Plan(EEP), May 2008 requires that authorities make provision for waste management capacity sufficient to meet the requirements arising within their own administrative area and their share of the London apportionment27 28. So those people who support the incineraters beware what they wish for. Take notice of the sentence. As such it will not preclude sites coming forward in other areas of the County. Note .Preclude means Exclude,but the word "not changes the meaning toAs such it will not exclude sites coming forward in other areas of the County. Beware what you wish for?

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LFB

Thursday, January 26, 2012
Don't worry Freethinker. According to the piece below if NCC get their way there will be Incinerators all over Norfolk!!. Norfolk Minerals and Waste Development Framework Core Strategy and Minerals and Waste Development Management Policies Development Plan Document 2010-2026 (WCS) The WCS was adopted in September 2011 and now forms part of the Development Plan for both King’s Lynn and Norfolk generally. Willows Power & Recycling Centre ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.3.6 Given the scale of the requirement for new residual waste treatment facilities, the WCS acknowledges the likely need for several facilities to serve the County. "It is currently expected that the County Council’s proposed PFI project site at King’s Lynn (see paragraph 3.29) would, if granted planning permission and an environmental permit, provide up to 275,000 tonnes of waste treatment capacity. These figures would appear to indicate that there is a particular need for new recovery (residual waste treatment) capacity to serve the Norwich Policy Area, Thetford and Great Yarmouth urban area, although further capacity will also be needed to serve King’s Lynn."

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Christine

Thursday, January 26, 2012
11 Dec 2011 George Osborne and David Cameron rejected incinerators in their own constituencies, quoting they are the largest polluters to humans and the wildlife.Osbourne is the MP for Tatton' Cheshire and Cameron is the MP for Whitney, Oxfordfordshire. They both have young children, seems like Localism is alive and thriving in their constituencies.We also have families with young children and elderly grandparents but the politicians are still pushing against the peoples wishes to build a incinerater within 2 miles of our Town, They insist that it is safe,But according to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer it is not safe.It appears that Localism is recognised by "not what you know, but who you know" ?

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LFB

Thursday, January 26, 2012
NOVEMBER 23, 2011, 4:46 P.M. ET. Judge Mary France of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Harrisburg ruled that a band of city councilors lacked the authority to put the city of roughly 49,000 residents under bankruptcy protection when they filed the Chapter 9 petition on Oct. 11. "For Chapter 9 bankruptcy to work, all of the branches of a municipality must be on the same page," Judge France said when announcing her decision at a court hearing Wednesday afternoon. State leaders, bondholders and even the city's own mayor argued for the case to be thrown out of court, saying it violated the state's rules laid out for financially struggling cities. Earlier this year, Pennsylvania passed a law that discouraged smaller, distressed municipalities from filing for bankruptcy by threatening to cut off state aid. Harrisburg faces roughly $300 million in growing debt from an expensive incinerator project that was meant to turn the city's waste into energy?

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LFB

Thursday, January 26, 2012
Sorry to go a bit but a couple more thoughts.... Are there no harmful particulates from our current ugly power stations? I think there must be, they were just built before the internet could condemn them. Lets start a campaign to get them closed down then we can force the lights to start going out before the predicted time of 2015 - that's just three years off folks. We need power now if we want to avoid worse economic free fall than at the moment. Alternatives even if they are approved by the vocal few are years away - and Barking? - You never said what your approved carbon free alternatives are.

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Freethinker

Thursday, January 26, 2012
Sorry to go a bit but a couple more thoughts.... Are there no harmful particulates from our current ugly power stations? I think there must be, they were just built before the internet could condemn them. Lets start a campaign to get them closed down then we can force the lights to start going out before the predicted time of 2015 - that's just three years off folks. We need power now if we want to avoid worse economic free fall than at the moment. Alternatives even if they are approved by the vocal few are years away - and Barking? - You never said what your approved carbon free alternatives are.

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Freethinker

Thursday, January 26, 2012
To Fenscape: what was I up to? - putting effort into my own independent research instead of sitting comfy at home surfing - and I'm just a lowly pensioner , nothing grand , sorry to disappoint you I just like to make my own mind up about things. To Barking: Who is monitoring the nano particles that are escaping with the methane from landfill? Or the stuff that's leaching from it.? As to other alternatives, as Woodie says, any new initiative is just met by a barrage of negativity often driven by personal agendas. Has any one looked into the main objector's real reasons for starting this anti campaign ? Smells fishy to me. Maybe that can be a new area of research for me?

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Freethinker

Thursday, January 26, 2012
Freethinker, you can't smell nano-particles. The incinerator would (if it were ever built) pump them into the atmosphere over King's Lynn for 25 years. They are harmful. They cannot be filtered out (ask Cory Wheelabrator) They can pass through the cell membranes in lungs and lodge in the cells themselves. There is a European directive requiring all countries to reduce their concentration in the air. There is no safe level. But apparently, it's ok for there to be a 'local increase' over King's Lynn. And 'the way you see it' is wrong. It's not a question of incineration or landfill. There are alternatives. We do not have to replace landfill with skyfill. It's not necessary. (This is my second attempt at this post - sorry if it duplicates.)

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Barking

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Freethinker - what were you up to at Riverside? Inspecting your office when you lose your seat as a county councillor next year?

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Fenscape

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Two weeks ago Norfolk saw the application for a cable route on the recently constructed offshore, wind farm refused, only six months after the associated substation at Dunham was refused planning on similar grounds. This scheme would have provided energy for 400,000 homes. The proposed 40MW renewable energy facility at Thetford was also refused planning. If the scheme went forward it would produce enough energy for 70,000 homes, the equivalent of powering Great Yarmouth. In one week Norfolk refused two opportunities which would provide the equivalent energy needs for half of our county, whilst creating hundreds of jobs. I know the Norfolk construction industry will be very pleased with the announcement of a local company building the scheme. Let us not forget the last large construction project in Lynn was out sourced to 700 Polish. Where were the NIMBY’s then!

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Woodle

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Have any of you folk found out how much the incinerator at Riverside in London is affecting the area there? I have - its a clean, attractive and impressive facility - no smell and hardly any noise and its three times the size of the one planned at KL. Before you all give yourselves apoplexy do some real research that takes effort and go and see it for yourselves like I did. If this doesn't go ahead what is the alternative? The choice as I see it is either a clean facility on a semi industrial site at Kings Lynn producing useful energy from our waste in a controlled environment or to continue with ugly incredibly smelly landfill sites which are a pestilent blight on rural Norfolk, filling ever more gravel pits close to villages, like the one I live in.

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Freethinker

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Have any of you folk found out how much the incinerator at Riverside in London is affecting the area there? I have - its a clean, attractive and impressive facility - no smell and hardly any noise and its three times the size of the one planned at KL. Before you all give yourselves apoplexy do some real research that takes effort and go and see it for yourselves like I did. If this doesn't go ahead what is the alternative? The choice as I see it is either a clean facility on a semi industrial site at Kings Lynn producing useful energy from our waste in a controlled environment or to continue with ugly incredibly smelly landfill sites which are a pestilent blight on rural Norfolk, filling ever more gravel pits close to villages, like the one I live in.

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Freethinker

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
I would assume everyone wants to have massive landfill sites scattered around the countryside, or perhaps ship waste abroad or even lose the facility of having wheelie bins removed from outside their properties every week?? Why would people want the opportunity of employment during a recession? Short sighted comments aplenty!

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Andrew

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiGreat_Yarmouth_Outer_Harbour. Bam Nuttall also involved in unfinished Gt. Yarmouth Outer Harbour project.

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Christine

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
George E... The Office of National Statistics predicts a population in Norfolk of 1,065,700 people in 2033. If the ,waste arising per head of population' in Norfolk were reduced to say 300 kg (half way between Oxfordshire's 313.25 kg and Hynburn Borough's 293.3 kg) 1,065,700 people x .3 metric tonnes would produce 319,710 t of household waste, recycled at 70% this would produce 223,797 t for recycling and 95,913 t for the proposed incinerator which has an operating capacity of 268,000 t per annum. Cory Wheelabrator's claim that the majority of waste burnt would be Norfolk's household waste appears to be erroneous.

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Joyce

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
I think it is time to start looking into company records for all those associated with this project and see what can be found on many fronts.

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Canary Boy

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
JOHN L. NORTON - excellent point! Following massive delays and overspend the Cambridge busway was officially handed over to Cambridgeshire County Council, triggering a 28-day period for any remedial works be undertaken by BAM Nuttall. This period expired without BAM Nuttall having completed any of the required work. The County Council contracted Jackson Civil Engineering to finish the busway, at BAM Nuttall's expense, with a view to opening the busway in August 2011. The County Council served a legal notice against BAM Nuttall that they were not willing to pay the cost of the budget overrun, although as I understand it, the Council are likely to end up footing the bill. . . . . Hope Norfolk County Council have a watertight contract with Cory or we taxpayers will end up footing the bill for delays and overspends on the misguided incinerator!

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Norfolk and Good

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Hi all I am back this I felt needed to stand on it's own. As a really meaningful protest STOP using your Inert Waste bin. Refuse excess packaging, recycle anything that you do have. Eliminate that 268,000 tonne pile of fuel the county council has to feed this incinerator. The County Council has a greater plan to import fuel in the long term, King's Lynn is good for that today, let's mount a campaign to get the council debating how much they can afford to pay to import fuel before it is built. The basic premise of what I propose is to refuse to use your non recyclables refuse bin, that means not taking your waste to the dump as well, or to welcome Cory Wheelabrator before we are scaling a mountain of our own waste.

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George Ezekial

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
There is a belief amongst those who should know that proactive management of incinerators leads to minimal effects on the environment. BAM Nuttall usually choose their clients with care after much careful thought. What I still question is our county council's policy on waste disposal. How much of that 268,000 tonnes could or should be directed through channels higher up the waste heirarchy?

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George Ezekial

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Yes Bam Nuttall have a good record, who mentioned the Cambrigeshire guided busway?

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John L Norton

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Paul Green is also jumping the gun. The incinerator is still going through Planning and Permitting so he's currently offering nothing more than fools gold. All this amounts to is attempted sabotage because people with pound signs in their eyes dont tend to lodge objections to things that would otherwise be simply commonsense.

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Fenscape

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Its all rubbish - the event at Swaffham is nothing more than a PR stunt to stir things up and try and pitch local businesses against the campaigners. What's more important - a fast buck or people's long term health?

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Fenscape

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Just reading an article about incinerators in the USA. It seems that most dioxins and carcinogens in the emissions from these plants gets picked up by the wind and tends to land 30-50 miles from these plants. With the prevailing winds in Kings Lynn being towards the East and North East, it seems like poetic justice that most of it should land on Norwich and the Broads, ie the areas most supportive of the Tory Wheelabrator Incinerator!

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Norfolk and Good

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Yes, well done BAM Nuttall. Make sure your employees have got their National Insurance stamps all up to date - you never know when some massive hazardous edifice will start pumping out dioxins and carcinogens all over them.....

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Fenscape

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Well done Bam Nuttal-and local-all good for jobs!

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True

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Choice. Do you mean the many lawsuits concerning pollution or the dodgy Comres phone poll last March.

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CleanAirPlease

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
BAM Nuttall have an anti fraud policy and seem a very respectable company. What on earth are they doing taking work from Cory Wheelabrator with their abysmal record?

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Choice

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
A clever tactic giving the work to local companies. With major projects and decisions such as this, pretending to listen to objectors is normal in 21st century Britain. The attitude is "we have heard but not listened, and we will do what we want".

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Port Watcher

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
I thought the same Mad Brewer and posted about it earlier - my comment is awaiting moderation.... the upshot was that this is a cynical ploy to bribe the people of Norfolk. Any business who deals with Cory will lose me as a customer. That goes for my family and friends too.

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Fenscape

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
65,000 jobs? I don't think even Cory Wheelabrator would claim that. Personally, I'd prefer to be able to breathe fresh air.

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Barking

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
65,000 jobs?? I don't believe it!

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Barking

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Give the work and subsequent income to local people, then the objections will disappear like the Cheshire Cat, leaving only a self-satisfied smile.

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Mad Brewer

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
I suggest any firms intending to work for CW look up their US history first!! Not exactly a company you would trust!

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Christine

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
O no it won't!

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Barking

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Trust me, not words you take lightly from the Government!!!! but this project WILL go ahead!!!!

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Colby Army!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
It's a shame to see all this wasted effort being put into a project that will never happen. Think how much time, effort and money would have been saved if Norfolk County Council had listened to the majority of the population of Norfolk, and focused their attention on developing a waste strategy and structure that had a consensus.

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Barking

Tuesday, January 24, 2012