Environment Minister Alex Attwood today made a statement to the Assembly on waste infrastructure.

It follows the decision of the Southern Waste Management Partnership (SWaMP2008) to abandon its procurement of a long term waste infrastructure contract because of a legal challenge.

SWaMP2008, one of three council Waste Management Groups, acts on behalf of its eight constituent local councils in the South and West and is responsible for procuring and delivering a project on behalf of its councils to divert biodegradable municipal waste from landfill. It invited expressions of interest in its procurement in June 2009.

In June of this year, SWaMP2008 received a formal challenge to the legality of its 'revised bidder consortium' following the introduction of two new partners to the consortium by the original bidder. After taking advice, SWaMP concluded that it could not risk incurring the significant costs that would be involved in contesting the challenge with no certainty of success. Therefore it concluded that it had no option but to abandon the procurement.

-- Advertisement --

The Minister highlighted that this outcome demonstrates the risks inherent in such projects and the need to deploy best practice and best oversight in relation to their procurement.

He said: "I have been taking appropriate actions to subject the three waste management procurements to rigorous scrutiny and review. That has been my approach over the last 18 months. I need to be satisfied that the procurements can achieve their objectives and that this is justified in terms of the public purse and the interests of the councils and ratepayers."

The Minister continued: "We are now in a critical phase in the Strategic Waste Infrastructure Programme - as it has been since I became Environment Minister. There is a need for certainty and avoidance of doubt. In the coming weeks, my focus will be to subject the remaining two procurement exercises being undertaken by councils to robust and ongoing scrutiny to ensure that waste procurement is modelled to serve needs of the councils in the North, to do so in a way that is fully compliant with European legislation, is affordable, is deliverable and is the necessary and best option for our waste requirements."

(CD/GK)