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 Director) added:

x)    A development in Medworth, Cambridgeshire, a site twice the size of Plymouth, had planning permission and EfW (Energy from Waste) construction was expected to commence in July 2025;

                      i.        Waste contracts had already been sold;

                     ii.        It would provide steam and power in the area and was carbon capture ready;

                    iii.        It was expected to open in 2028;

y)    Another project in Canford, Bournemouth, similar to Plymouth’s facility, had been delayed in going to Planning Committee, but was expected to do so before the end of 2024 and EfW construction was expected to begin in 2026/27;

z)    In Germany, MVV continued to have a number of green projects including a heat pump in Mannheim that was providing green heating to 3500 local homes;

aa)  MVV was a local authority owned company in Mannheim.

In response to questions it was further discussed:

bb) In order to try and help schools with the cost of transport, MVV had increased the number of children in a tour, allowing more than one class to attend and making it more cost effective;

cc)  Concerns over lower attendance from Devon County Council schools and relevant Councillors would speak to Devon County Council to see what could be done;

dd) MVV ran four EfW plants in the UK, and an international figure would be provided outside of the meeting as it was not available to hand during the meeting;

ee) One advantage Germany had over the UK was that a lot of infrastructure had been put in at the beginning, whereas in the UK a lot was having to be put in retrospectively, which was costly;

ff)    Plymouth City Council had signed off on a delivery model for Heat Networks, with the first phase focusing on the City Centre. Further phases would consider utilising heat from the EfW and Medical Incinerator at Derriford;

gg)  MVV had not been consulted on the recent BBC article on EfW plants;

                      i.        EfW plants were designed to be more beneficial than landfill but still to get rid of waste;

                     ii.        The bigger issue was the high volumes of waste and the need to decrease this at source;

                    iii.        The response sent to the BBC would be shared with Committee members;

                    iv.        Two people had contacted MVV since the article frustrated at the misconceptions, and the comments on the article online were largely positive too.