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

West Norfolk council fires first salvo in new legal battle over King’s Lynn incinerator

Chris Bishop Friday, February 10, 2012
3:57 PM

A pre-action protocol letter has today been sent to Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, informing her of the council’s intention to challenge her decision to award £91m in Waste Infrastructure Credits to Norfolk County Council to build an incinerator in King’s Lynn.

Late last year, Ms Spelman warned the county council she was concerned at the strength of opposition to the project.

She requested evidence that there was “a broad consensus of support” in favour of the incinerator.

But last month, Ms Spelman announced that she had decided to award the £91m in waste credits neeeded to build the plant at saddlebow, near Lynn.

This week it emerged the county council had signed the contract with US consortium Cory Wheelabrator to build and run the plant.

West Norfolk council is seeking a judicial review of the decision to award the waste credits. More than 65,000 West Norfolk people said they did not want the plant, in a council poll.

Tonight West Norfolk council leader Nick Daubney said: “It is regretful that it has come to this, but we have been frustrated at every turn by Defra’s apparent unwillingness to engage with us throughout this process.

“We have telephoned, e-mailed and written to the Secretary of State’s office asking for copies of the evidence and so far this has not been forthcoming.

“None of this is surprising given that prior to the Secretary of State’s decision being announced, we had written to her on no less than 12 separate occasions without receiving a response and all my requests for a meeting were not even acknowledged.

“It is shocking that a decision of such magnitude can be taken with such a lack of transparency.

“The Pre-Action Protocol letter that we have sent today places a duty upon the Secretary of State to disclose the evidence and information that convinced her to change her mind.”

Bill Borrett, Norfolk County Council’s cabinet member for environment and waste, said: “It’s between the borough council, Caroline Spelman and Defra.

“It’s Caroline Spelman’s decision they have a problem with, it’s really nothing to do with Norfolk County Council.”

The pre-action protocol letter requires Ms Spelman to provide copies of all evidence received between November 7 and January 18, which led her to conclude that her criterion for the award of the credits had now been satisfied, when previously, she had said that she was not satisfied it had been met. The secretary of state has until February 27 to provide the evidence supporting her decision.

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17 comments

I think it is in extremley bad taste that some supermarkets have allowed Cory Wheelabrator agents into their store to gain signatures from unsuspecting customers to favour waste incineration when these stores are miles away from the proposed site. I also think that a supermarket should not be encouraging this type of waste disposal. Supermarkets should be advocating recycling. But saying that I have heard that when managers of the stores found out what was going on Cory Wheelabrator made a quick exit.

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Jack

Friday, February 17, 2012
Let's not forget that the 2nd consultation window for planning closes shortly - all info can be found here: www.ncctrash.com

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Fenscape

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Bye bye Bedford Incinerator. Very good news for sane people everywhere.

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alecto

Saturday, February 11, 2012
AND THERES MORE.Quote” EDP24 March the 2nd 2011. In an internal briefing paper, obtained by the EDP, PPS’s Paul Kelly explained how the referendum had moved the goalposts and what damage limitation would be needed when the result was announced. Mr Kelly warned that Cory Wheelabrator’s response would be “critical to [the] overall credibility of the project” and even whether the incinerator planning application succeeded. Until now, the paper went on, the PR strategy had been “open and measured”. “The referendum has tended to complicate this approach by the simple reason that it cuts across the normal consultation process and simplifies the isssues involved to an unhelpful degree,” it said. Cory had decided not to participate in the referendum, claiming the question contained within did not reflect the complexity of the issues at stake. “We need to suggest that our absence from the referendum undermines the moral value of it and it carries no legal value in any event,” said Mr Kelly. Instead of taking part in the council poll – by providing the arguments in favour to sit alongside the arguments against on the ballot paper – Cory would carry out its own market research, using its own questions. “We need to publish the results of the survey and be unrepentant as to why we did it because the council gave us no choice,” adds Mr Kelly. “We might want to offer the borough council a chance to see our research results (depending how they look).” Cory engaged the polling organisation ComRes to carry out its own survey. They contacted 1,751 adults between February 17 and February 22. Some of them complained that the questions were one-sided. One woman who contacted the EDP said: “They were exceptionally leading, you didn’t have a choice really.” When the EDP asked Cory for the questions, they refused to supply the wording. Releasing its results minutes before West Norfolk published its figures, Cory said its research showed 65pc of Norfolk people were in favour of the incinerator, but 63pc of people living in Lynn were against it.

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Choice

Saturday, February 11, 2012
Choice. This needs to be sent to the Borough Council. It sounds like NCC are working for Tory Wheelabrator. Quote” Lynn News 22nd feb 2011. Sam Jones, of Wretton, was contacted for the survey on Friday night. She told the Lynn News yesterday she had twice been asked which waste disposal option she preferred. On the first occasion, the options given were incineration, landfill or other, while only incineration and landfill were given the second time. She said: “I ended up being really furious because they weren’t giving any opportunity to say you didn’t want the incinerator.” Ms Jones thought the caller had stated they were working on behalf of Norfolk County Council. The council have denied any involvement in the survey. But Cory Environmental and Wheelabrator Technologies, the companies behind the Lynn proposals, have confirmed they are behind the survey not the county council.

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CleanAirPlease

Saturday, February 11, 2012
Bill Borrett had bragged about Caroline Spleman had made her decision because of the dodgy ComRes phone poll some days after on BBC radio Norfolk. If you search Lynn News ComRes Feb 22nd 2011 this tells a different story. To turn it round, I suspect if NCC did not want an incinerator and pro incinerator campaigners had used the same polling company ComRes, NCC would soon discredit them. The truth is NCC had purchased the land 2007 with the intention of building an incinerator for Palm Paper. Money talks before health.

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Choice

Saturday, February 11, 2012
Tried to contact them twelve times without success? That is outrageous, even by the low low standards of behaviour we have come to expect from central government and the county council. The judge is going to be mightily impressed by the fact that the District Council had to compel the Secretary of State to provide evidence. As for Mr B (we're not allowed to mention his name are we?) says its nothing to do with them - who signed the contract? Wasn't me.

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alecto

Saturday, February 11, 2012
Dickens, what planet are you on? I think it takes a great deal of courage for people to put their hands up and admit they originally made a mistake. The only one engaged in an act of spite and throwing millions and millions of taxpayers money down the loo is Cllr Murphy along with his pals. That plant will not pass planning and NCC knows that already.

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Fenscape

Friday, February 10, 2012
Brian Long did not have much of a choice, and only heard one side of the story then. We can see what he has been up against now, the behaviour of our cabinet members is shameful. Brian Long and Nick Daubney want a healthier alternative rather than burning 268.000 tonnes of mostly recyclable materials for the next 25 years.

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Maggie

Friday, February 10, 2012
The legal action between NCC and Michael de Whalley was not fought on a level playing field. Cory Wheelabrator who runs NCC had spent £70000 to bankrupt the little man. How on earth did they get involved? Money talks. We learn today NCC has spent £2.5 million of our money just to on Cory Wheelabrator. Why. It had taken Cory 16 years to get planning consent for their goldmine in Bexley. This proves most incinerator companies are related as they are all American. Is it price fixing! Is this why other technologies are artificially kept down as the money makers are incinerators. Has anybody broken down the costs?

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CleanAirPlease

Friday, February 10, 2012
It is everything to do with NCC, because it will be short of £169m if this challenge succeeds. Mark my words, we shall find NCC joining in the proceedings as an interested party. The NCC Cabinet member with responsibility for waste - if I name him this probably will be censored - really is living on another planet.

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Nemesis

Friday, February 10, 2012
Dickens, I don't think 65,000 people were interested in any 'spat' when they voted to have this monstrosity stopped. If the incinerator were allowed to happen, far more taxpayer's money will be lost. Have you considered that, having seen the facts about incineration rather than the propaganda that NCC and Cory Wheelabrator tried to foist on the public, they (Mr Daubney and Mr Long) should be applauded for reconsidering their view? And for listening to their electorate?

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Barking

Friday, February 10, 2012
Dickens would you say that Dictators are to be worshiped or abhorred? This has little to do with the personalities you mention. Daubney has taken this stance because he was forced to by the people he represents. The history is irrelevant, in a democracy you have to go with the will of the people, it is that simple. The people of West Norfolk are against Murphy, Daubney and Long have just woken up and realised that they must do what is right for those they represent.

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Canary Boy

Friday, February 10, 2012
He needs to wake up and smell the coffee. This whole incinerator issue appears to be all about a spat between Daubney and Murphy. It is personal not political and Daubney knows he cannot win yet he is prepared to waste a fortune of tax payers money in a legal challenge on something that he was originally in favour of along with his chum Brian Long. They could have done something about this years ago if they had wanted to. It is only recently that they have both done a U turn. These two are not fooling anyone and they are about to waste a fortune (yet again) of council tax money just to spite Derrick Murphy. Nick Daubney and Brian Long have a lot of questions they should be answering before they attempt to force Caroline Spellman to explain herself. What a pair of hopelessly inept hypocrites we have in charge of our council.

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Dickens

Friday, February 10, 2012
Bill Borrett, "Its really nothing to do with Norfolk County Council" - well as Norfolk County Council has nothing to do with its electorate thats fine then!

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smithrob

Friday, February 10, 2012
It is bad enough that most members of the public who contacted DEFRA or Caroline Spelman hit a brick wall receiving pathetic circular briefings rather than actually replies to carefully compiled and well reasoned questions. However, for our Borough Council to be ignored on 12 occasions with not even an acknowledgement is astounding. I am sure any judge will take a very dim view of this totally unacceptable situation. It is bad enough that the County Council have brickwalled every attempt at full discussion of this project by full council or delegated any decision making to another authority who can be seen as unbiased. To see this government who claim they want to listen to the people act in this manner beggars belief. What a dreadfull world we live in what hope for our Big Society or the Localism Bill.

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Joy, King's Lynn

Friday, February 10, 2012
Has anyone in Kings Lynn & West Norfolk examined infant death rates in electoral wards aggregated for the eight years 2003-2010? The rates vary from zero (in 21 wards) to maximum of 22.6 per 1,000 live births. The average rate for the Council for this period is 5.0 per 1,000 live births. You need to have the data mapped out and printed in your paper - just as was done in the Stroud News & Journal on 4 January 2012 (page 3): http:ukhr.euincinerationStroud_News%26Journal_maps.pdf

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Michael Ryan

Friday, February 10, 2012