Enfield Conservatives: Final Call to Arms, before 'The Lobby of Silver Street'

"Truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

The Conservative Group welcomes, and would encourage, as many local residents to attend full Council at the London Borough of Enfield on Wednesday 6 July at 7pm, and the protest outside of the Civic Centre at 6pm.

The issue of Pinkham Way is not a party-political issue, but a matter that will have long-term effects on local residents of Enfield and other boroughs.

The concern over the affects [spelling] are clearly ignored by what has been written by the controlling Labour Group of Enfield, who are putting up arguments blaming Barnet, and asking the Conservative Group to speak to Barnet! The Conservative group cannot do this as we are not in power! Blaming those doing their job not in power, or who cannot affect [correct!] the decision directly, is a poor excuse.

The public deserve to know exactly what has happened in the past, and what the other options that are available to the proposals. For the full council meeting on 6 July, members of the Conservative group who were involved in the North London Waste Authority will be speaking on Pinkham Way, under motion 14.2.

The Conservative group will explain clearly the history, current situation, options to be considered, and legal arguments to stop the proposals. Alternatives will be explained.

We appeal to members of the public to attend this meeting, ignore the polluted smoke-screen of deflecting blame, and come and hear the discussion and alternatives, and see the vote on the motion.

The protest outside the Civic Centre on Wednesday starts at 6pm.

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The Enfield Conservative Group’s response to the North London Waste Plan ('NLWP')

The Enfield Council Conservative Group objects to the proposed use of Pinkham Way ('the Pinkham Way Site') for waste recycling purposes.

It objects to the proposed use on two substantive grounds:

1. the identification of the Site for waste recycling purposes is unnecessary; and
2. the Site is inherently unsuitable for waste recycling purposes.

Identifying future requirements for sites for waste management, and the lack of necessity for identifying the Site as suitable for waste uses

The seven local authorities which are constituent members of the North London Waste Authority were obliged by law, in their Preferred Options Report, to identify future requirements for waste management.

Those requirements were premised on the requirements of, among others, the North London Waste Authority ('NLWA’).

Cllr Neville

The NLWP properly considered the need for sites, based upon the stated requirements of the NLWA at the time. The 'North London Waste Planning Members Group' was chaired by Enfield Councillor Terry Neville OBE,JP.

Enfield Conservative Group argues that, since the date of the Preferred Options Report, the requirements of the NLWA have changed, and as a consequence of those changes, the Pinkham Way site is no longer required.

Paragraphs 4.39 and 4.40 of the Preferred Options Report, issued in October2009, stated as follows:

The requirements of the North London Waste Authority

(4.39) An important consideration in the development of the Plan is the needs of the North London Waste Authority in setting up new arrangements for dealing with municipal waste, as part of their new waste contract.

The North London Waste Authority have indicated in their Outline Business Case (as outlined in 1.13 above [a reference to the NLWA's case to the Government for PFI credits]) their need for three large new sites, in the west, centre, and east of the area, where they can site:

• Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) plants,
• Anaerobic Digesters (AD), and
• Materials Reclamation Facilities (MRF).

In addition, the North London Waste Authority has identified a need for a number of smaller sites that could be used as Household Waste Recycling Centres in Enfield and Barnet. Their requirements total around 20 hectares.

(4.40) North London Waste Authority currently has no sites that it can offer to potential waste management contractors, to build new facilities to treat residual waste, as part of its on-going procurement process.

It currently makes use of an existing waste facility at Edmonton, but the contract for this expires at the end of 2014, and cannot be extended. The Authority does not own the land at Edmonton, and is therefore unable to develop alternative treatment facilities on the site.

Therefore, the Plan needs to identify sufficient land to meet the needs of the Authority (as outlined in 4.39 above). However, the Edmonton facility is expected to continue to operate throughout the life of the Plan, and will have the potential to treat waste arising in north London (other than municipal waste).

Cllr Hurer

Cllr Lavender

Enfield’s two Conservative representatives on the NLWA, namely Cllrs. Michael Lavender and Ertan Hurer, consistently argued against the strategy of the NLWA, and objected to its perceived need to identify and acquire further sites for waste management and recycling purposes. Their position, particularly on the stance of NWLA in acquiring sites before the Plan had been fully developed, was supported by Cllr. Terry Neville.

In summary, the position of the NLWA was, at the time of preparation of the Preferred Options Report, as follows:

1. NLWA had entered into a contract with a third party (London Waste Limited) to operate its waste facilities;
2. the length of the contract did not coincide with the life expectancy of the Edmonton incinerator;
3. the NLWA had decided that future waste management, recycling and disposal facilities should be dealt with via a PFI contract;
4. the NLWA had decided that the only means by which it could provide continuity of service provision, to the constituent authorities, was, by itself:
   • identifying future sites for waste recycling and management purposes, 
   • purchasing them, then 
   • persuading the seven London Boroughs to identify such sites as suitable for waste use, via the NLWP, and then
   • seeking planning consent for them.
   The site(s) with planning consent would then be handed over to a successful PFI contractor, who would design, build and operate the facilities; and
   
5. the Edmonton incinerator would stay in situ, and be managed by either the existing contractor or following termination of the existing contract, by the new PFI contractor.

The reasons why this strategy was adopted was because the previous Labour Government had offered substantial PFI credits to waste authorities which could demonstrate a viable scheme, and secondly, the NLWA had left it too late in the day to proceed with alternative options.

Enfield’s two Conservative representatives on the NLWA, namely Cllrs. Michael Lavender and Ertan Hurer, consistently argued for an alternative strategy. Although being consistently in a minority of two, their views and position were gradually being listened to, and supported, by other members of the NLWA, until in May 2010 the Labour Party took control of Enfield Council, and summarily removed them from the NLWA.

In summary, the position of Enfield Conservatives was, and remains, as follows:

1. If the NLWP identifies additional sites as being suitable for waste recycling and management purposes, and if the NLWA achieves its objective of obtaining planning consent for them, then (given the existence of the Edmonton site, which retains planning consent for an incinerator) the likelihood of this site with planning consent for an incinerator [Edmonton] being used for alternative purposes is remote in the extreme. This will mean that there will be an over-capacity of waste sites in the area, with the consequence that North London will import waste from other areas, resulting in increases in traffic and environmental degeneration. Therefore, the number of additional sites should be kept to a minimum;
2. a PFI solution is unnecessarily expensive;
3. the NLWA should purchase London Waste Limited (‘LWL’) and if need be, terminate the contract with LWL and terminate the other leases on the Advent Way, Edmonton site, to ensure that:
   
   • the NLWA has use of the underdeveloped site at Advent Way, 
   • there is not a misalignment of the existing contract with the life expectancy of the incinerator infrastructure,
   • there is flexibility to introduce the desired modern technologies on that site,
   • the timing of the earlier decommissioning of the incinerator can be controlled, and
   • some of the risks inherent in a PFI project are removed;
4. the Advent Way site is much more suited to modern waste recycling, treatment and management infrastructure than are other sites;
5. the costs of acquisition of LWL, although high, represents good value as opposed to the PFI solution; and
6. the proposed sites at Pinkham Way and Ponders End were unsuitable because of traffic and other planning considerations.

Cllrs. Michael Lavender and Ertan Hurer worked with the late Sir Simon Milton, Deputy Mayor for London, to make it clear to the NLWA that its proposals for the development of further waste sites was unnecessary and unacceptable.

The NLWA purchased London Waste Limited and now has use and control of the Advent Way site.

Enfield Conservative Group therefore believes that one of the premises (in fact, the principal reason) behind the need to identify Pinkham Way has been removed.

The rationale set out in paragraph 4.40 of the Preferred Options Report no longer applies, because North London Waste Authority now has ownership and control of the Advent Way site, which can be offered to potential waste management contractors to build new waste treatment facilities harnessing the newer technologies. Moreover, Cllr. Neville points out that, in drafting the Plan, members were anxious to include a sequential test in order to avoid an unnecessary proliferation of waste plants.

That test is now set out in Plan Policy NLWP1, as follows:

"A (planning) application will only be considered for sites in Schedule C (which includes Pinkham Way) if it can be demonstrated that no suitable sites exist in Schedules A (which includes Advent Way) or B (which includes the rest of the London Waste site at Advent Way)."

This is reinforced in para.5.10 of the Plan, which states:

“the sites in Schedule C (which includes Pinkham Way) do not represent an entitlement to develop for waste use. Developers will have to demonstrate that sites in Schedules A or B are not available, or not suitable, for the proposed use."

Enfield Conservative Group strongly supports the inclusion of the sequential test, and calls on all member planning authorities within the NLWA to apply that test rigorously.

Pinkham Way is inherently unsuitable for waste management, recycling and treatment

Enfield Conservative Group believes that the Pinkham Way site is inherently unsuitable for waste management, recycling and treatment. The reasons for this belief are set out in the draft North London Waste Plan and are summarised as follows:

1. the Site is covered in vegetation that has taken hold, which is of ecological interest;
2. the Site is a Haringey borough grade 1 site of importance to nature conservation (SINC);
3. the site is surrounded by areas of importance to nature conservation, and any development may adversely impact these areas;
4. access to the site by Heavy Goods Vehicles has not been resolved. Increased traffic movements will undermine the efficacy of the improvement works currently undertaken to the A406, and result in a significant detriment to the residential amenity of neighbouring communities. This may lead in the long-term to a requirement for a more fundamental realignment of the A406, which will have a further significant detrimental impact on the Southgate, Palmers Green and Bowes communities in particular; and
5. the site is largely in flood zone 1, with just 16% in flood zone 2. A culverted stream runs below the site. If any of the site’s sewers discharges into it, there is a potential flooding risk due to water backing up during high river levels.

Enfield Conservative Group

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(The original text of this statement is now available here. Some minor formatting 'improvements' have been made [for clarity!])