Plans are at an advanced stage for Leicestershire County Council to move to the next stage with a one hundred and thirty million pound PFI initiative that could involve setting up a new Energy from Waste facility.
The council’s cabinet will soon be required to approve the submission of an outline business case to Defra in order to secure money to finance up to half of the scheme’s costs. Once the approval is granted, the OBC will be submitted to the department prior to inviting interest from firms in September and formal bids in October.
The council has set February 2010 as the latest time by which it should have selected the winning bidder, with a contract to be formally awarded three months later and the new waste treatment plant launched by April 2015.
The cabinet’s spokesman on waste, Councillor Nick Rushton said they were scouting for the best process to treat waste and reduce the amount that is sent to landfill sites. He added that they hadn’t settled on any particular process to allow potential bidders to come up with a variety of proposals.
Leicestershire County Council has emphasised that it is considering wide range of options, including mechanical biological treatment and anaerobic digestion, for the treatment of up to one hundred and eighty thousand tonnes of waste annually that would otherwise be landfilled.
However, it has previously said that its preference is an Energy from Waste plant alongside a waste transfer station. A location for the facility is yet to be decided on, but the council has identified its existing Whetstone waste site, south of Leicester, as a potential site.
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