Artist's impression of the planned new Edmonton incinerator
Environmental campaigners have abandoned their plan to apply for a judicial review of the decision to build a new and bigger waste incinerator in Edmonton because of doubts about whether they qualify for a cap on legal costs. The Stop the Edmonton Incinerator Now coalition will instead try other strategies to derail the North London Waste Authority's incinerator project, including calling on levelling up secretary Michael Gove to send in Government commissioners to investigate the "dysfunctional" NLWA and take over its powers until it can be put on a sound footing.
"My pockets simply aren't deep enough"
The planned application for a judicial review was to have been launched in the name of Dorothea Hackman. In a press release issued today she said she had taken the decision to drop it with a heavy heart:
"I stand by the merits of the case and my right to challenge the execution of the contract on 24 January. My pockets simply aren’t deep enough for me to take on a public body that relies on taxpayers to cover its legal services."
A solicitors' letter sent to the NLWA in late January on behalf of Ms Hackman listed ways in which she said that the waste authority had misled its board about the environmental impacts of the new incinerator, such as by failing to clarify that the plant:
- would emit 700,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, not 28,000 tonnes
- would not be built “carbon capture and storage ready”
- would cause 700,000 tonnes of surplus energy-from-waste capacity in London
- would be built without a pre-sorting facility, which could reduce the burning of plastic recyclables by up to 70 per cent
- would not provide “low-carbon” heat or power
- was based on electricity emission calculations that flout government guidelines.
Alternative strategies
Having abandoned the judicial review route, Stop the Edmonton Incinerator Now will be pursuing several alternative strategies, including calling for a modification to the permit issued by the government to build the new plant, to require carbon capture and storage “readiness” and a pre-sorting facility to boost the recycling of plastics - this would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the burning of fossil fuel-derived and potentially recyclable plastics.
Their most dramatic intervention is calling on the government to temporarily take over the running of the NLWA in the same way that sometimes occurs with local authorities. A letter sent today to Michael Gove alleges that the waste authority suffers from the same failings that have led to government intervention in other cases:
- failure of overview and scrutiny functions, inadequate controls
- failure in the duty to provide value for money and to improve services with regard to economy, efficiency, and effectiveness
- mismanagement of public money
- dysfunctional internal culture and relationships.
An annex to the letter fleshes out these allegations and lists further problems, such as the lack of relevant knowledge and experience of board members, who are appointed by the seven borough councils, replaced relatively frequently and thus not capable of providing effective scrutiny. By contrast, NLWA chair Clyde Loake has been in post since 2008.
"Dysfunctional culture"
The letter is particularly critical of Cllr Loakes:
"The chair’s behaviour has at times been publicly autocratic, unprofessional, and dismissive of experts; members of the public and elected officials alike have described the chair as ‘rude’ and ‘misogynistic’. Board members seem unable to question the chair’s decisions, which contributes to a dysfunctional culture."
To back up its claim that the NLWA is in practice "accountable to no-one", not even Parliament, the campaigners quote the words of Chingford MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith during a parliamentary debate on 9th February:
"Nobody seems to say that they will take responsibility for it in Government or local government. It appears that the only body that is capable of reviewing or changing the project is the North London Waste Authority itself. In a way, it sets the exam question and answers it for itself every time. That cannot be right. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will give us some inkling as to whether the Government think that the project carrying on is right".
