Essex County Council began another attempt to find a waste management services provider for residual municipal waste last Friday with the launch of a procurement process. This is the Council's third invitation to tender for the medium-term waste treatment contract. Since the failure of an earlier long-term public-private partnership (PPP), the Council has extended two invitations to tender for which no contract was awarded.
The Council's original plans for the treatment of residents' residual waste centred on a mechanical-biological treatment (MBT) plant built in the Tovi Eco Park in Basildon by the joint venture Urbaser Balfour Beatty under a 2012 PPP deal. Although plant commissioning began late in 2014, the facility never passed the full acceptance tests and waste deliveries to the facility ceased in June 2020. After protracted legal wrangling, the Council and UBB reached a settlement in April 2022 under which the contractor agreed to demolish the MBT facility and surrender the facility's environmental permit....
