Opposition Cllrs win a key call-in decision on Tyseley Incinerator.
Birmingham City Council’s Sustainability & Transport Overview & Scrutiny Committee have today called in a decision to extend the City’s contract with Tyseley Incinerator for waste disposal. Opposition councillors from Birmingham Local Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, & the Green Party had requested the call-in review of the Labour cabinet’s decision, & commented after securing the call-in. This is the second such successful call-in against the failing Birmingham Labour Administration in two days. With the ruling Labour group thrown into chaos in recent days, the Council’s opposition is providing much-needed leadership on key issues.
Deputy Leader of Birmingham Local Conservatives, Cllr Ewan Mackey (Con, Sutton Roughley) Said:
“Today we've just had a successful call-in. We've called in the decision to have a new contract for the Tyseley incinerator. There are many reasons why we've called this in, but the decision basically was one that did nothing for the residents of this city. It was all about focusing on what benefits the council and that's not what we're here to do as councillors. One thing that is very important, is that we’ll be pointing out at Cabinet when this does come back to Cabinet, that in 2019, Cabinet promised that this would never happen again. Here we are in 2023 having to hold the Cabinet to account for making exactly the same decisions. That is what is wrong with this administration. They don't learn, they keep going on making the same mistakes over and over again.”
Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Cllr Roger Harmer (Lib, Acocks Green) added:
"The key point for us in asking for the call-in - which the committee agreed with - is that the decision to renew the incinerator for another 10 and possibly 15 years is directly against the council's agreed declaration of climate emergency, which was made four years ago. Despite that, with the incinerator being one of the leading emitters of carbon dioxide in the city, we have done basically nothing to improve the recycling rates. We now languish in the bottom three of all councils in the country in terms of recycling. It's absolutely, desperately, urgent that we increase recycling and burn less waste. Staggeringly, in this city, we burn over 100,000 tons of food waste. Over 34% of the waste that goes to Tyseley is food waste. There is a simple way of organizing food waste recycling. Other councils do it and when they do it people see how much food they waste and radically reduce the amount of food they do waste. That's the key to this.
BCC is currently recycling about 22.7% of waste which is broadly the same as it was recycling 4 years ago. The best councils in the country are recycling over 60% of their waste. This council can and must do better. It’s about reducing the amount of waste first, and then secondly, recycling it and using the incinerator as our last resort. That's what we're failing to do at the moment."
Leader of the Green Party Group, Cllr Julien Pritchard (Green, Druids Heath & Monyhull) also said:
“The original decision did nothing to improve our recycling rates. It did not look at any alternatives, like reducing rubbish, a food waste collection or improved recycling, to this climate-trashing plan to keep this incinerator going in Birmingham for another 10 to 15 years and it did not represent good value for our city or its residents. The Labour administration claimed there are no alternatives to their climate trashing plan, but that's because, despite running the Council for over 11 years, they've not seriously looked at alternatives to burning Brum's waste.
They've not put together any kind of waste action plan. There's no strategy behind this decision. It’s just easy & quick. But unfortunately, that's exactly what trashes the planet and doesn’t give a good deal for the city or its citizens. So we're really pleased that the committee has decided to call this in and asked the council to look again at this appalling decision to keep this inefficient, out of date burner going for the 10 to 15 years."
