Surrey County Conservatives

Surrey Conservatives proved right over waste as Civil Engineers report predict £10bn national investment needed 9th January 2006

Surrey Conservatives have seized on a report by the Institute of Civil Engineers on waste as evidence that they were right to take action now to deal with Surrey’s growing waste problem.

The report states that the UK needs a level of investment similar to that required to set up the motorway network and the electricity grid to provide new facilities to handle and process waste. It puts the price at £10bn needed to fund this investment, and validates the decision by SCC’s Executive to the consult residents on the Surrey Waste Development Plan back in September, despite strong opposition from the Liberal Democrats.

The report from the ICE is supported by recent comments from Peter Jones, a director of Biffa which collects the waste of more than 50 local authorities, who says that tighter EU recycling laws and higher landfill taxes will cost up to £8bn - about 10% of the cost of the National Health Service - within years. By 2009, Mr Jones expects most counties to have only one landfill site, and a new generation of large industrial composting and waste recovery plants.

Within a year EU laws will also require all vehicles and batteries to be recycled, and even shredded tyres will be stopped from going to landfill under the EU’s "life cycle thinking" approach to all materials, which means looking at their environmental impact across their entire life cycle.

Many areas, especially Labour controlled ones in large cities, are failing badly to get people to recycle. In London, 25 out of 37 boroughs failed to meet their recycling targets in 2004 and stand to be fined a total of more than £31m. Fines across London could increase to £100m a year by 2009.

Conservative run Surrey CC has already taken pre-emptive action to counter the huge rise in the cost of landfill, and tackle Surrey’s 3m tonnes and rising waste problem, by launching for consultation the draft Waste Development Framework and setting a county wide recycling target of 50%.

Commenting David Munro, Conservative Environment Spokesman, said:

“I’m glad that the issue of waste is now moving rapidly up the national agenda. Government now needs to take a pro-active lead to this national problem and ensure that local authorities are given sufficient funding, to not only increase levels of recycling, but also ensure adequate infrastructure is in place to deal with waste that can be no longer sent to landfill.

The report by the Institute of Civil Engineers gives clear vindication that we were right to implement effective measures to deal with Surrey’s growing waste problem by putting out for consultation our draft waste plan and setting a countywide recycling target of 50%.”