The Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson has hit out at the decision by the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority to award a £1 billion plus contract to a company based in Teeside.
The “Energy from Waste” contract for disposing Merseyside waste was awarded to SITA UK Limited working in partnership with energy and utilities giant Sembcorp UK and investment firm I-Environment (part of a Japanese Corporation).
The contract is worth over £1 billion and will last for 30 years. It is expected to create hundreds of jobs during the construction of the new facility at the Wilton International site in Teeside. A further 50 permanent jobs will be created at the Teeside site once the plant is operational.
The Mayor said: “I feel the city and the wider City Region has had a massive opportunity for major infrastructure investment snatched from its grasp and hundreds of potential jobs which we desperately need have gone to the North East.
“I want to understand why the City Region leaders have not been involved in such a huge decision and why I, as the Mayor of Liverpool, with Liverpool contributing more to the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority than any other authority, had to read about the decision in a press release after the decision was made.
“I also want to understand how it can be more environmentally friendly and more cost effective to ship the waste of Merseyside all the way to Teeside some 150 miles away rather than dispose of our own waste locally.
“Although local authorities on Merseyside didn’t want the facility on their patch a bid was put in to have it in Ellesmere Port, which would have allowed people living in the City Region to apply for the jobs created”
