London Mayor Ken Livingstone has clashed with the Government and Southwark Council over the issue of waste management in the Capital.
Green Party AM Jenny Jones has written to the Mayor advising him that Southwark Council is to enter into a PFI waste management contract which “could result in much of the borough’s waste being incinerated”.
Mayor Livingstone has written to David Miliband, the Secretary of State for the Environment, asking him to oppose Southwark’s plans.
According to the letsrecycle.com website
Southwark Council refuted the Mayor’s claims saying it was “a lie, a
complete fabrication” that it wanted to build an incinerator.
In a separate development the Mayor says he is minded to “renew the Direction to West London Waste Authority to ensure they better manage their waste” and has informed them of the proposed draft direction.
Praising Ms Jones the Mayor said she had “rightly raised the issue that if we include West London Waste Authority’s intention to send its waste to Grundon’s incinerator in Slough, and plans for the proposed incinerator at Belvedere go ahead, London will be set to incinerate 37 per cent of its municipal waste. If this was the case then London would account for nearly half (47 per cent) of all incineration in the country.”
Mr Livingstone used the row to re-state his calls for central Government to grant him the power to create a Londonwide waste authority. Despite announcing an extension of the Mayor’s powers such calls have so far been snubbed.
The Mayor said the Government could “resolve these problems by unequivocally backing the creation of a single waste authority under the office of the Mayor of London, which would give us a city-wide body similar to the way we deal with transport.”
