Hartlebury Waste Incinerator

The controversial incinerator that has been planned to be built at the Hartlebury Trading Estate is kicking up letters in the Shuttle. This PFI initiative has been in the planning stages since 2008 and ended up having to be approved by Eric Pickles MP. Let's not forget though that the original plan was for a waste disposal site at the old Sugar Beet site in Kidderminster until it was quite rightly pointed out (by the public) that there were insufficient road linkages and the hypocrisy of claiming that this was a central location for waste when the hospital was added to Worcester's outskirts due to Worcester's "central location". So this has been a pet project for Worcestershire council for quite some time and just because the public aren't in favour of it is no reason to stop now.

The latest letter from Louise Brooks of HWAG (not to be confused with WAIL) contends that the price would increase possibly to £1bn. How ridiculous! There's no evidence that the cost of this £35m incinerator will ever increase. Indeed this £120m incinerator is set to be brought in at exactly the cost as originally outlined and the council will never have to subsidise the cost of waste processed as their 28-year forecast will be shown to be as highly accurate as all their other forecasts.

Seriously even Communist Russia never tried to go beyond a 5-year plan. 28 years of 'prediction' is a joke.

Hartlebury Common trek

Had the Bratii over on Sunday and took them out to Hartlebury Common; they've never been there before. It's one of those annoyances I'm going to have with Devil Child and Chewie - once one is old enough to just need a booster seat the other's still in a full seat and it's just a pain to transfer those between cars. In the case of the Bratii, Minor is now on a booster seat and Major needs nothing so it's a piece of cake to transport them around and give their long-suffering parents some peace and quiet.

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I change my mind on the Hartlebury Incinerator?

I dealt with the pros and cons of the proposed Hartlebury Incinerator at the beginning of the year and from the arguments presented came down on its side. However as seems to be the case with our current form of trickle-feed government some more information has been exposed over at the WFA.

So no more NIMBYism or potentially biased sources 'tainting' the discussion.

The incinerator is a private enterprise, therefore the council will have to pay by the ton to have it incinerated; this is fair enough. However it appears that there isn't enough waste generated within the county to meet the burner's capacity. So what? Well if capacity isn't met it seems that the council will make up the shortfall in expected revenue.

This isn't much different to a standard locked in contract - you sign up to telephone services (e.g.) for 2 years at a certain rate. The rate set is predicted on you using their services for that period, if you try to leave they might not yet have made any profit out of you and therefore include a clause to charge you to make up the potential loses.

This leads to the question posed by Louise essentially - what's to stop the incinerator opening up a recycling centre next door? So they get paid by the ton; remove the recyclable bits, get paid for selling that; get paid for generating electricity; and then get paid if it's not enough waste.

It gets worse - are they paid by the ton delivered, or by the ton burned? If it's the latter by recycling more they are reducing the weight which automatically qualifies them for the shortfall money. How much do they get and how is this decided - we don't know. It's our old friend company confidentiality.

What we have here seems to be a standard government type PFI contract - you take the profits; we'll take the risks. The assumption in all these cases is that the incentive is for the private company to exceed the targets to make more money over the base stipulation. Except there's also an incentive to do nothing except maximise the profits via a reduction in quality etc. - if I get paid a fixed fee regardless of my output and can  increase my spending money by either working harder or cutting my costs... which road will be taken?

Pretty as a picture

Hartlebury Common is simply stunning at the moment. The denuded trees have all grown white leaves from the tiny icicles that have formed on them. Combined with the current sunlight that has yet to melt them - stunning. As you might expect I have no camera to hand.

Hartlebury Common fencing

I've been asked if I know anything about the fencing that's gone up around the Wychavon side of Hartlebury Common that doesn't appear (as yet) on the Wyre Forest side. Sadly this is going to be one of those back-of-the-mind rumour types rather than hard evidence - grazing. Yep it is a common and that's technically what it's for, but the mention of reintroducing a more formal arrangement of grazing is doing the rounds. As this is next to an 50/40mph unlit road the last thing anyone wants is to hit a sheep that's decided to wander across it to fresher pastures - hence fencing.

It's not bad either. One could argue that wooden cross struts may have been more in keeping with the aesthetic, but the chain wire is thin enough so as to be unobtrusive strung between the wooden posts so I'm going to call it as a good choice.

Say no to the Hartlebury Incinerator?

Well I said I'd look into it so here we go. First off the bare details - a company wishes to build an incinerator on vacant land on the Hartlebury Trading Estate, this will burn off non-recyclable rubbish to generate electricity. Some people are annoyed at this.

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