South Kirkby Community Liaison Group Meeting

Date: Wednesday 16 November 2011 Chair: Councillor Dick Taylor Time: 18.00- 20.15 Minutes: Sally Hurn, Project Co-Ordinator, Shanks Location: The Grove Hall Lounge Bar, Stockingate, South Kirkby, Pontefract, WF9 3QF

Attendees

Tom Allsopp (TA) Mayor South Kirkby & Moorthorpe Town Council Geoff Barker (GB) South Kirkby Angling Club Eric Burkes (EB) Local Resident Nigel Catling (NC) Capital Delivery Director, Shanks Cllr Maureen Cummings (MC) Cabinet Member for Environment and Communities Chris Geeson (CG) Town Clerk South Kirkby & Moorthorpe Town Council Sally Hurn (SH) Project Co-Ordinator, Shanks John Kirk (JK) Local Resident Dominic Lally (DL) Project Manager, Shanks Paul Maddison (PM) Senior Engineer, Land Drainage, WMDC John Nicholls (JNic) Project Director, Kier John Nortcliffe (JN) PFI Procurement Manager, WMDC Alan Roach (AR) South Kirkby Residents Against Waste Nanette Swain (NS) South Kirkby Residents Against Waste Stephen Tulley (ST) Ward Member, Wakefield Council Graham West (GW) Highways Network Manager, WMDC Mark West (MW) Team Leader, Environment Agency Mike Winterbottom (MWb) Wakefield Operations Manager, Babcock

Apologies

Cllr Wilf Benson (WB) Ward Member, South Elmsall Town Council Peter Brear (PB) Environment Agency. Peter has now retired Ian Deighton (ID) Regeneration Consultant, South Kirkby and Moorthorpe Town Council Julie Greenwood Strategic Waste Policy Manager, WMDC Cllr Laurie Harrison (LH) Ward Member Cllr Clive Hudson Assistant Cabinet Member (Waste PFI and Climate Change), WMDC Cllr Hudson has been replaced as Chairman by Cllr Dick Taylor Glynn Humphries (GH) WMDC Service Director (Cleaner and Greener) Daniel Jacobs (DJ) Strategic Waste Technical Manager, WMDC Tim Johnson (TJ) Environmental Services, WMDC Stuart Saxton (SS) Ranger, WMDC Kate Thompson (KT) Major Projects, WMDC Kim Macfarlane (KM) Local Resident Tony Ward (TW) Local Resident Matt Womersley (MW) Environment Agency. Currently on secondment. Mark West attended in his place

Minutes

DT 1. Welcome and Introductions As it has been some time since the group last met and there were a number of new people in attendance every one present introduced themselves to the rest of the group.

1 2. Apologies

DT Were received from those as listed above.

3. Minutes from the previous meeting held on 12 October 2011

DT The minutes from the last meeting held on 12 October 2011 were agreed.

4. Project overview including PFI contract progress

JN A brief overview of the relationship between Shanks Waste Management (Shanks) and Babcock International Group (Babcock) was given. The group were advised that a Consortium that includes Babcock, Shanks and WMDC will now deliver the Project. JN explained that the project has been in the procurement stage for longer than anticipated as a result of some changes to the VT Group business. VT Group was acquired in its entirety by Babcock International Group in July 2010. Babcock then made the decision that waste management was not an area they wanted to continue to invest in and started to look at exit options. Shanks came on board in February 2011 to work with Babcock and help lead negotiations to get the Project to the Financial Close stage, at which point the relationship with Babcock will cease.

There have been some minor technical changes to the project but it remains largely the same as it was before.

The Executives from all companies involved in the project met recently and a date has been set for Financial Close (FC) in February 2012. Work will start on the South Kirkby site at the start of April 2012. There is still a huge amount of ongoing work behind the scenes to progress the project to FC.

A brief explanation was then given regarding the Service and what will happen once FC has been achieved. For the first two years Babcock/Shanks will take on the existing HWRC sites and operate them in the same way that WMDC do currently. The waste collections will remain the same. During this time the new Waste Facility will be constructed on the South Kirkby (SK) site. A new facility will be built at Denby Dale Road (DDR) and Glasshoughton (GH). There will also be improvements made to the Site at Welbeck. The new Waste Facility will treat waste for the next 25 years using and Autoclave and Anaerobic Digestion (AD) tanks. WMDC will continue to do the waste collections as before.

The Facility remains largely unchanged. There will still be an Autoclave included on the site (a reduction from three to one) alongside three AD tanks. There will still be a Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) and Composting Facility on site. There has been a reduction in the number of AD tanks from three to five.

There has been a change to the way waste will be processed with the involvement of Shanks and waste will now go through a pre-sorting system before entering the Autoclave. The residual waste will be sent off site for processing. The digestate from the Autoclave will be fed in to the AD tanks to produce gas which will be used to power the site and exported to the National Grid if there is a surplus.

Planning

VT Group had applied for Planning Permission on the Calder Vale Road (CVR), DDR, GH and SK sites. The CVR site will be used whilst the DDR site is being rebuilt. Some early works have already commenced at the SK site to establish the validity of the mineshafts. The first one has been found and work has commenced to find the second and third mineshafts. This work should be completed in early December 2011.

An access road is currently being constructed for the Glasshoughton site.

There are three other sites when planning permission will run out before work can commence. Shanks have applied to extend these permissions and these should hopefully be granted by the end of the month.

A report will be presented to the Cabinet in early December recommending that the contract is awarded and signed off.

A Final Business case will be presented to DEFRA who are the custodian of the Waste Infrastructure Credits (formerly PFI credits). Once approved, a Promissory note will be provided to confirm that the credits are available.

2 The floor was then opened to questions

AR Asked if a reduction in the number of AD tanks and Autoclaves would reduce the capacity of the Facility.

JN Explained that the amount of waste being produced across the District had fallen since the project first began. Shanks have modelled the waste that will be processed through the Facility and in their process a considerable amount of material is removed at the start and therefore there is no longer a requirement for as many Autoclaves or AD tanks. The original capacity was for 195, 000 tonnes, this has now reduced to 170,000 p.a. which is in line with the natural reduction of waste across the District.

The Autoclave that was built and tested at the First of Class site is soon to be decommissioned and moved to the SK site.

ST/ Expressed their concern and what they felt were major changes and significant downsizing to the project. TA/ They also wanted to know if there would be changes to vehicular access if waste was being taken off site CG after the pre-sort stage.

EB Raised concerns that the waste that was not going in the Autoclave would smell as it had not been sterilised.

JN Reassured the group that the process remained largely unchanged. Any materials that are not going to be processed through the Autoclave; plastics, paper etc, known as Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) will be taken off site straight way to be used as Bio Fuel at Ferrybridge Power station. He added that it was anticipated that there would be the same amount of vehicles coming in and out of the Facility as before.

The digestate the will now go into the AD tanks will be of a better quality and will therefore produce a much higher gas yield.

GB Asked if the waste would be sorted via mechinical means or manually.

JN Confirmed that it would be mechanical sorting process.

JK Wanted to know if any consideration had been given to include walkways to allow for educational visits in the plant whilst redesigning the building.

JN Replied that the building sizes and the footprint of the site had not been changed, however the space that was created by the removal of two Autoclaves will be used to implement a pre and post sort facility.

DL Added that generally it is safer to keep the public away from plant machinery. The walkways were given consideration but the decision was taken not to include them. There would also be a requirement to CRB check all staff that could interact with children during visits to the Facility.

JN Continued by saying that the key issue was around Health and safety and cost implications also played a part.

ST Was concerned what would happen in the Autoclave broke down or maintenance was being carried out.

JN Explained that there was a bypass system in place that would route waste directly to the AD tanks.

AR Asked if waste would have to be stored on site if a break down occurred

DL Explained that this would not be the case as the AD tanks were able to treat the waste that would have been processed by the Autoclave.

TA Asked if the plant would be running 24 hours a day or business hours of approx. 9.00am to 5.00pm

DL Confirmed that the plant would be running 24 hours a day

TA Asked if the 275 jobs that were to be created as mentioned in the recent press article would be for existing Council staff or would they be brand new jobs

JN Confirmed that approximately 30 WMDC staff currently working on the HWRCs and TLSs would be