INCINERATOR: Solicitor and campaigner John Martin’s view . . .
UGc picture for Lynn News
WHERE do we go from here? First of all, let me say that last Wednesday was a ghastly day for us all.
Do you recall where you were when you heard that Caroline Spelman had awarded the waste infrastructure credits?
I was working at home in my slippers. One of my very few chums in County Hall promptly tipped me off on the telephone.
The terrible irony is that at the same time Cllr Bill Borrett received a similar call, not a stone’s throw away from me. However he was in hunting pink, leading the West Norfolk over our neighbour’s land.
Mrs Spelman’s decision in my view can only be seen as one motivated by political considerations.
In particular, she seems determined to appease those elements within the waste industry that reacted to the spin placed by the County Council on her letter of November 7, 2011, to Cllr Derrick Murphy.
I also suspect that she was anxious to avoid the possibility of a High Court challenge from that direction, preferring it to come from the Borough Council with its comparatively limited funds.
I would hope that the Borough Council, once it has extracted whatever further information it can from Mrs Spelman or her advisers, will issue proceedings against her, in her capacity as Secretary of State, for judicial review of her decision. The High Court would be asked to quash it. But, as you know, time is short when you are minded to seek judicial review.
Any such claim must focus on her own criteria for making an award of waste infrastructure credits. Mrs Spelman is bound to apply them. I personally believe that she has erred in law in the way that she has done so. Let us just look at two instances.
One requirement is that the project to be funded must not threaten recycling rates. But there is ample evidence to suggest that mass burn energy-from-waste incinerators positively discourage recycling, and result in a reduction in recycling rates.
This is because materials that could be recycled are frequently needed to feed the waste incinerator and maintain its economic feasibility.
I also fear in this respect that Mrs Spelman has been taken in by the County Council’s erroneous claim that the 50,000 tonnes of incinerator bottom ash that will result each year will count towards its recycling figures.
Even more crucial is the (now) well-known requirement for a broad consensus of support for an underlying waste management strategy with which the project is consistent. Yes, we have a waste management strategy but some careful research by two ladies “of my acquaintance” – a term sometimes used by embarrassed male witnesses of a certain age – has revealed that it was deliberately amended in 2006 so as not to support the principle of waste incineration.
On that basis, the County Council’s claim for waste infrastructure credits should have fallen at the first fence.
But even if that waste management strategy had not been amended, we can at this stage all recite by heart the evidence that rebuts the argument that a broad consensus of support for it exists.
So let me throw in one newer piece of evidence. The three authorities that have rejected the principle of waste incineration provide a home to 46% of the population of Norfolk. Did you know that?
So where DO we go from here? I hope that it is firmly in the direction once more of the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, but with the Borough Council as claimant, a very different claim and a very, very different defendant.
Please believe me, this is probably our best chance of stopping this monstrosity.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for King's Lynn
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 9 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.