Norman Baker MP Member of Parliament for Lewes constituency
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Lewes,
East Sussex,
BN7 2LJ.
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The local Tory equivalent of Black Wednesday
- Conservative incinerator has doubled in cost since first estimate
- £35 million gap in Veolia’s construction costs to be met by councils
- Incinerator more than two years behind schedule
- Tory East Sussex CC “breaking EU procurement regulations”
- Green light given to construction start despite threat of legal challenges
- Council taxpayers to pick up the bill if gamble on timing goes wrong
A devastating picture of spiralling costs, missed deadlines and reckless gambling with taxpayers’ money is laid bare in papers leaked earlier this week to Lewes MP Norman Baker.
The MP describes the position as one of “staggering economic mismanagement” and is making a formal demand for the Audit Commission to carry out an investigation into the management of the waste contract and associated matters by Tory-controlled East Sussex County Council. He is also reporting the council to the European Commission for a breach of the regulations relating to procurement.
The papers reveal that despite the fact that any increase in construction costs of the incinerator is required by the contract to be met by Veolia, county councillors were being recommended to agree a five-year extension to the contract in order to give the company a further income stream of £35 million, more than half the increase in costs identified.
The MP believes that the 5-year extension to the contract constitutes a breach of the EU’s procurement regulations, which suggest that instead the intention to extend should be advertised and be subject to competition. He is asking the European Commission to investigate.
The papers also show that the Tory council, in its determination to bulldoze ahead with its incinerator, is encouraging Veolia to let the construction contract almost immediately, despite the fact that a risk of an action for Judicial review in the courts still exists, and despite the fact that the site at Newhaven has not even been secured yet. Furthermore, the council was proposing to pick up the company’s bill if anything goes wrong, by way of the issuing of an indemnity.
Norman Baker says: “The Tory county council is out of its depth and recklessly gambling and losing millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money as one thing after another goes off the rails. So bloody-minded have they become about their incinerator that they are losing perspective. This is the local Tory equivalent of Black Wednesday as they desperately pile more and more money in to keep their incinerator plans afloat.”