Manvers waste plant 'first of many'

Details of two rival plans for a waste management centre—which could cost hundreds of millions of pounds—were revealed this week as planners and officials from the Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham (BDR) Waste Partnership met press and public.

The project will see waste from the three authorities taken to the site near Wath in an attempt to cut the amount of household waste currently sent to landfill and improve recycling rates, in a bid to meet stringent EU targets.

But this week it emerged that the scheme could be the first of many as the three borough councils revealed plans to develop similar plants to deal with agricultural and industrial waste.

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Kevin Swift, Barnsley Council’s senior planning officer, revealed: “At the moment, we are talking about a project that would greatly increase the amount of waste that the three authorities recycle but it only deals with household waste.

“Agricultural and industrial waste account for a huge proportion of waste in Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham.

“A team made up of representatives from the three authorities has come together and is producing plans for other facilities to carry out a similar process with other types of waste.

“We will be putting forward plans for other similar facilities across the three boroughs.”

Which project will prove successful at the site off Bolton Road, Manvers, currently earmarked by the BDR Waste Partnership, depends on the results of a tendering process now reaching its latter stages.

Around 40 per cent of household waste created within the three authorities is currently recycled but both the proposed plans—submitted by SITA Lend Lease and 3SE—would target an improvement of around ten per cent, helping exceed EU targets of 50 per cent which come into force in 2015.

This would be achieved by filtering recyclable waste from the contents of black bins.

The plants would also reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill as all waste that could not be recycled would be incinerated to generate electricity for the national grid.

Project director Geoff Birkett said: “The fundamental thing we are trying to deliver with this project is to divert waste away from landfill and produce increased recycling.”

The partnership has secured £77.4 million in Private Funding Initiative grants, but Mr Birkett believes that might account for just half of the cash needed to get the plant up and running.

He added: “Over a number of years we are talking about investment of hundreds of millions of pounds.

“Hundreds of jobs will be created by the building process and many more local people will be trained to work at the facility itself.”

A planning application could be submitted in the summer of next year with the aim of starting construction in 2013 and becoming fully operational in 2015. BDR hosted an exhibition at Prospect Road Community Centre, Bolton-on-Dearne, on Wednesday.

It is holding further sessions at Montgomery Hall in Wath today and at Mexborough Resource Centre, between noon and 8pm, on Tuesday.

Early concerns surrounding health and the effect on the area’s environment have already been voiced as residents become increasingly aware that waste from across Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham could be incinerated nearby.

Worried locals also fear that an increase in traffic resulting from the lorries required to move waste to and from the site could cause serious congestion on the area’s roads.

Allan Dunn, of residents’ group Dearne Valley Aim, said: “We are not against an incinerator because landfill sites across the area are getting full.

“But having it here will be bad for the local residents, both in terms of health and convenience.”

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