(a)

the Incineration Liaison Committee (ILC) had continued to meet on a monthly basis and provided a beneficial forum for community engagement;

(b)

in October 2011 the ILC had visited the waste management and recycling centres at Chelson Meadow to enable a greater understanding of waste management issues;

(c)

key communication activities had included –

?

all councillor briefings held at the three authorities;

?

two separate MP briefings;

(d)

in total the partnership had received and responded to nine written enquiries focused on issues around emissions, traffic, the visual impact of the plant and the democratic process;

(e)

it was believed that many letters during this period had been sent through the planning process following the Planning Committee’s decision on 22 December 2011;

(f)

media coverage in this period had been extensive with a focus on –

?

the decision of the Planning Committee;

?

the erection of a crane on site to indicate the height of the building and stack;

?

test piling on site by MVV;

(g)

Tony Norton, Director of the Centre for Energy and the Environment, Exeter University, wrote an article published in the Western Morning News which had provided a positive stance on incineration highlighting the benefits of Energy from Waste;

(h)

the recent planning application for an anaerobic digestion plant at Langage, had created an avenue for requests for the partnership to use this site as an alternative for the treatment of waste however, this was not an appropriate solution and an editorial comment via SWDWP did highlight the inappropriateness of this suggestion for the partnership’s waste solution.

(a)

the three participating authorities originally discussed working together in 2007, to explore a joint solution to the common problem of waste management, with the first SWDWP Joint Committee held in August 2008;

(b)

the partnership expressed an interest in obtaining PFI Credits to DEFRA and in October 2008 were awarded £95m of PFI Credits, now known as a Waste Infrastructure Grant;

(c)

the procurement programme was launched in October 2008 and MVV Umwelt were approved as the preferred bidder in December 2010;

(d)

in 2012 the partnership were considered to be in a good position having signed contracts with all parties, had the Waste Infrastructure Grant confirmed and MVV received conditional planning approval and a draft environmental permit for the site at North Yard, Dockyard;

(e)

in working together the three authorities had achieved all its key project objectives most notably to secure an economically advantageous solution, that utilised reliable and proven technology and would divert 97 per cent of waste from landfill achieving a reduction of 74,000 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent to 5 per cent of Plymouth’s annual carbon footprint;

(f)

the partnership was currently working with MVV on many activities including –

finalising planning documentation including production of the Section 106 legal agreement;

producing health, safety and environment plans as part of construction phase method statements;

producing detailed stage programmes and detailed design information including drawings, specifications and calculations;

(g)

moving forward it was hoped that –

the decision of the Planning Committee would be ratified and legal agreements signed in early February 2012;

enabling works were to commence on site in February 2012 to ensure that the main construction works commenced in April/May 2012 with the aim of construction being completed in April 2014;

hot commissioning was to begin in September 2014 and not September 2012, as reported in the Outline Project Programme, when the three authorities’ waste would begin to be diverted from landfill with the facility being fully operational from November 2014;

(h)

as a partnership the future steps involved –

reviewing and re-shaping the Joint Committee as necessary to reflect this latest phase including monitoring and progress of on site construction;

implementing necessary arrangements and reviewing contracts to move from current landfill contract with Viridor to the new Energy from Waste (EfW) contract;

continued engagement with councillors at briefing sessions and public through the Incinerator Liaison Committee.

(i)

there is a Judicial Review period that runs for a further three months following the issue of the formal planning decision;

(j)

MVV had received a draft Environmental Permit in December 2011 and consultations for the permit were ongoing until February 2012;

(k)

given the fact that MVV had yet to finalise Section 106 agreements and that the Judicial Review period was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26.