Rejection urged of site ascity waste transfer station

THE Kirkstall area of Leeds should not be the home of a new waste transfer site, according to a recommendation being put to councillors.

Officials assessing bids by contractors looking to run the treatment facility for the city’s non-recycled waste are recommending that plans to develop the Kirkstall waste site are not good value for money and should be dropped.

Their views will be considered by councillors later this month.

If the plans had been given the green light the redeveloped site in Evanston Avenue would eventually have been used as a temporary holding station for waste from west Leeds bound for a major new waste treatment centre planned for the east of the city.

Leeds secured 69.8m from the Government’s Private Finance Initiative in April 2008 towards the development of a waste treatment centre.

It is still in the process of deciding what technology to use to deal with the city’s rubbish and at what site. It expects to award a contract next year.

The city council has not made a decision on preferred treatment technologies and is remaining neutral on possible solutions.

Previously officers and councillors have visited various plants across the country looking at alternative technologies, including energy from waste – an incinerator – mechanical and biological treatment (MBT) and anaerobic digestion.

The Kirkstall site will continue to receive waste and act as a sorting site for household waste. It currently handles around 26,000 tonnes a year.

Leeds City Council’s executive board member for environmental services, James Monaghan, said last night: “We have been able to look at the costs quoted by contractors in the running to develop the waste treatment facility and we can see it just wouldn’t be good value for money to put a further dedicated transfer station at Kirkstall.

“The process of finding a way to deal with our non-recyclable waste has been open to a whole range of different options that we have to examine one by one, from different sites to different kinds of technology.

“This is just one option we have looked at and rejected as not value for money.”

It is hoped the technology will be up and running during 2014.