Council votes to withdraw from Teesworks incinerator scheme
Knife-edge vote was decided by meeting chair
I hope you’ll forgive me for a shorter edition than usual this week. On a personal note it’s been a pretty hectic week, and by the time edition number 68 of The Teesside Lead lands in your inbox, I should be married (barring any act of god or my wife-to-be coming to her senses).
I sat watching a Newcastle City Council meeting online when I should have been writing my wedding speech, and that’s where this week’s main story comes from.
If you have any tips or stories, get in touch at teesside@thelead.uk or via Bluesky.
I’ll be back with more next week!
Leigh
Newcastle City Council has voted in favour of a motion to ask its Cabinet to withdraw from a controversial waste incinerator project at Teesworks.
Newcastle is one of 7 North East councils who are part of the joint Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility (TVERF) project, which will see all unrecycled waste burned at high temperature at an incinerator on the Teesworks site, around 500 metres from homes in Grangetown.
The motion, which was put forward by Liberal Democrat councillor Gareth Kane, said that the council believes that “expanding incineration capacity at a time when the Council should be aiming to double our recycling rate is counter-productive,” and that claims the incinerator was carbon capture-ready are “meaningless”.
It means the City Council will now formally ask its decision-making Cabinet to withdraw from the project.
The vote’s result was even, and after issues with electronic voting systems, and arguments over procedure for casting votes in the case of a deadlock, the Lord Mayor of Newcastle - a Liberal Democrat councillor - cast his vote in support of the motion.
During the debate, Karen Kilgour - Labour’s council leader - said withdrawing from the project, which had been in the pipeline for around six years, would leave a black hole in the authority’s financing.
“Withdrawing at this late stage is simply not a serious or credible option,” she said, “and is a last-ditch attempt to destabilise the council at the expense of our financial stability, reputation and environmental responsibilities.
“To withdraw now would be catastrophic for the council’s finances,” she added.
Liberal Democrat Colin Ferguson argued the long-term nature of the TVERF deal would lock the council in to burning its waste until a point years after better technology is developed.
“My children will be older than I am now,” before a new solution to unrecycled waste could be procured, he argued.
“I understand the argument is that this is the best that we can get… and while I might not agree with that, even if I did I would say this: Why should we lie down and accept it? Why should we stay quiet when we should be saying ‘this is simply not good enough?’”.
Despite the council passing the motion, the Cabinet could simply ignore the request, as there’s no legal obligation for it to follow the council’s vote.
Viridor is due to be given the contract to build and operate the facility, which would see 450,000 tonnes of household waste burned every year to generate electricity. If construction begins next year, it could be operational by 2030.
I asked Newcastle City Council if they had any comment to make on Wednesday night’s vote, but they didn’t respond. Instead they sent my questions to the press officer managing comms for the TVERF project on behalf of the seven councils.
They said on behalf of the seven councils: “While political views are a matter for each individual partner authority, we are aware that a motion was carried by Newcastle City Council, by just one casting vote, in which Council resolved to ask Cabinet to withdraw from the TVERF project.
“The TVERF remains the only affordable, reliable, sustainable and safe treatment solution for dealing with the waste produced across the seven partner councils, and the debate in Newcastle does not change this underlying fact, since no viable alternatives were put forward.
“The project is in the final stages of a five-year procurement process and Viridor was appointed Preferred Tenderer in July. The project board, on behalf of all seven of the partner authorities, continues to work towards achieving financial close this year so construction can begin on this vital facility in 2026.”