In accordance with the Joint Working Agreement a new Chair will be elected from Plymouth City Council’s Committee members.

The new Chair will invite nominations for a new Committee Vice-Chair in accordance with the Joint Working Agreement and a new Vice-Chair will be elected from Devon County Council’s Committee members.

The Committee agreed the appoint Councillor Tom-Briars Delve as Chair and Councillor Roger Croad as Vice Chair for the meeting.

No declarations of interest were made.

To sign and confirm as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 19 October 2023.

The Committee agreed the minutes of the meeting held on 19 October 2023 as an accurate record.

There were no items of Chair’s urgent business.

To receive a presentation from Mike Turner; MVV Managing Director and Jade Beavan; MVV Community Liaison Manager summarising the performance of the contract, facility and MVV’s business performance.

Mike Turner (MVV Managing Director) provided an update and highlighted the following for 2023/24:

a)    2023/24 had been a positive year overall with greater than designed availability, increased carbon savings and minimal public complaints;

b)    The summer 2023 open day has resulted in over 2000 visitors on site;

c)    Some long outages had affected throughput, but overall had been a good year for availability so the electricity generated and heat exported had been as high as they could be;

d)    The heat exported had been lower than previous years due to a health and safety issues with the heating system at the dockyard;

e)    Availability was very good and above national average;

f)     CO_2eq saving was 92,547 tonnes, higher than the previous three years and above target;

g)    There had been less unplanned shutdowns than in the previous years, two due to tube leaks and one relating to a grate fault;

h)    There had been one justified complaint in 2023/24 and was due to gas monitors being triggered during works and vents automatically opening;

                      i.        Two further complaints had been attributed to other facilities;

i)     Waste diversion was above target at 99.99%;

j)     Performance deductions had been applied;

                      i.        There were breaches in relation to delivery turnaround times of 0.1%;

                     ii.        There had been 279 breaches in relation to waste acceptance protocol due to human error when initially inputting a registration and mistaking the letter X for the letter K, which then went unnoticed. ANPR is being installed to remove the risk of errors like this in future;

                    iii.        One complaint had not been logged within timeframe, and one outage had not been reported within timeframe;

k)    Signage upgrades to incorporate the new logo and changed to PPE (Mandatory eye protection introduced);

l)     A new ladder inspection regime had been introduced;

m)  New fire hose reels had been fitted and the fire system had been upgraded;

n)    The Cardox online high pressured blockage cleaning system had been introduced under trial.

Jade Beavan (MVV Community Liaison Manager) added the following in relation to community engagement:

o)    Reinforcement of the waste hierarchy and supported delivery of Partner Council’s key waste minimisation messages;

p)    Facilitated tours and careers Q&A sessions;

q)    Organised and attended local events;

r)    Participated in waste education meetings and hosted partner site tours and waste education visits;

s)     The decrease in hours spent with schools was likely due to the cost of transport for schools to get to the facility;

t)     Outreach offerings had increased;

u)    Usage of visitor centre had increased, particularly with Plymouth schools, which Jade had been working hard on;

v)    There had not been any interest in virtual tours since the conclusion of the COVID19 pandemic;

w)   The open day in 2023 had seen very high visitor numbers at approximiately 2000, and whilst 2024 was lower at 350, it was more manageable;

                      i.        All Council partners had attended the event;

                     ii.        Interest in bookings had increased after the event.

Mike Turner (MVV Managing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34.

To receive an update on the current status of the contract and facility for 2024/25 from the SWDWP Contract Team.

Ashleigh Sherrell (Contract Manager, SWDWP) highlighted the following points in her presentation on The MVV and Facility performance in 2024/25:

a)    An interim outage was conducted between 8–17 May 2024 totalling 270 hours of work, including replacement of 120 grate bars, repairing leaks in the Economiser and installing a new chain in the bucket elevator;

b)    There was a major outage due in 2025, with the turbine to be removed for an overhaul meaning the plant would not generate energy for up to eight weeks;

c)    There had been six Performance Failures for minor operational matters surrounding vehicle deliveries and waste acceptance;

d)    MVV had been identifying and making improvements to its safe work procedures within the tipping hall;

e)    Parties were working together to put in place an effective Contingency Plan in the rare event that diversion from the Facility would be required;

f)     The partnership was 2.3% below forecast waste tonnage at the time of the meeting.

Mel Hayward (Assistant Contract Manager, SWDWP) added:

g)    There had been two noise complaints reported, one which was confirmed and caused by a bearing failure on the bucket elevator, the other was investigated but no noise was found;

h)    There has been two media enquiries, one in conjuction with Devon County Council in relation to waste segregation for POPs legislation, and another in relation to the recent BBC article on increased emissions of greenhouse gases from incinerators;

i)     One Liaison Group meeting had been organised but there had been no interest/attendance from local residents and whilst this was positive in that they didn’t want to meet to discuss anything negative, the team were going to organise another before the end of the year aiming for good attendance to continue good community engagement;

j)     There had been two consent breaches with time exceedances on CO₂ and TOC emissions due to a plant trip in June 2024, and Section 5 notices were issued to the Environment Agency, as required;

k)    There had been 12 school bookings made across the partnership from April-September 2024.

In response to questions it was discussed further:

l)     That Devon County Council would book 10 slots for schools for the year, but there had been some issues with some cancellations;

m)  A copy of the presentation would be shared with Committee Members;

n)    The turbine would be carefully transported to Newcastle for works.

The note that the next meeting is scheduled for 16 October 2025 at Council House, Plymouth.

The Committee agreed to note 16 October 2025 as the date for the next meeting, to be held at Council House, Plymouth.

The Committee agreed to pass a resolution under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 to exclude the press and public from the meeting for the following item(s) of business on the grounds that it (they) involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, as amended by the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Members will receive a presentation from Ashleigh Sherrell; SWDWP Contract Manager summarising the contract’s commercial performance, and any issues faced for contract year 2023/24 and the partnership’s budget forecast and allocations for 2024/25.

Ashleigh Sherrell (Contract Manager, SWDWP) provided an update on the contract’s commercial performance, and any issues faced for contract year 2023/24 and the partnership’s budget forecast and allocations for 2024/25.

Thanks was given to Councillors Hart and Croad for their involvement in the project, as they would be stepping down from their roles as Councillors in 2025.