Green Euro-MP Condemns Plan To Export London’s Waste To South East
22 May 2006 - Green Party Euro-MP Caroline Lucas has condemned plans for councils in the South East to accommodate some 1.25 million tonnes of waste from London every year until 2025.
Under the arrangement, which is included in the draft South East Plan, a regional planning blueprint for the next 20 years, councils across the region will be forced to take waste from London – without receiving a penny in compensation.
The lion’s share of the waste – a total of 4.4 million tonnes each – will be landfilled in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Kent (including the Medway Towns area) has been asked to landfill 3.2 million tonnes, whilst Milton Keynes alone has been asked to accommodate 2.7 million tonnes. Unitary authorities formerly in the administrative county of Berkshire will have to take a total of 2.2 million tonnes – as will each of Surrey, East Sussex and West Sussex .
Dr Lucas said: “This is absolute madness – the South-East hasn’t got the facilities to deal with its own waste – let alone London ’s.
“We must adopt a zero-waste strategy – as has been done successfully in parts of Australia and Canada – by improving re-use, composting and recycling and cutting packaging.
“Landfill sites are increasingly scarce, expensive and toxic. Incinerators discourage recycling (as they constantly need to be fed), consume millions of gallons of increasingly scarce water and produce highly toxic discharges.
“The only way we can avoid drowning in a sea of waste is if Government takes steps to stop us producing so much of it.”
The ‘waste importation apportionments’ are described in the South-East Plan, a far-ranging document which will guide planning decisions on where to build housing, shops, offices and factories in the region over the next two decades. It contains proposals for 578,000 new homes to be constructed over the next 20 years, many on open and protected or environmentally-vulnerable sites.
The Green Party has responded to the public consultation over the plan, and Caroline has objected to the proposals, calling instead for an increase in the provision of social housing through an effective strategy for bringing empty homes back into use, more mixed-use developments with a higher proportion of affordable housing, and a re-assessment of the region’s targets for economic growth.
The South-East plan is open for consultation until 23 June 2006 – after which it will be adopted by Government and effectively become binding on all local authority planning decisions.
