A CALL has been made to scrap a new waste disposal scheme after Government funding was withdrawn.
Cheshire West and Chester Council’s executive is recommending that the scheme originally intended to dispose of the county’s household waste over the next 25 years be discontinued.
The decision, in accordance with the recommendation of the Joint Waste Board, is subject to a similar resolution from Cheshire East Council – the authority’s partners in the scheme.
After a lengthy process, the partners appointed a provisional preferred bidder to dispose of about 180,000 tonnes of waste annually under a 25-year Private Finance Initiative (PFI).
But, following the last Government elections, the strategic spending review resulted in a review of all PFI schemes in the case of Cheshire and ultimately the withdrawal of £130million of finances. The council sought to overturn the decision however the High Court ruled in favour of the Government.
The executive also decided to write off £1.2million of capitalised project expenditure which incurred as part of the procurement project.
Last week Cllr Lynn Riley, executive member for community and environment, said: “While our colleagues in Cheshire East have still to consider the issue, we believe that the PFI scheme is no longer an affordable option and the loss of strategic funding has left us with no alternative but to discontinue.
“The problem of disposal remains and with rapidly dwindling landfill resources we must move on quickly and find an alternative solution.”