Lib Dems Reject London's Waste

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sun 29th Oct 2006

Milton Keynes Council's Liberal Democrat administration has pledged to fight proposals that one-tenth of London's waste should be dumped in landfill within the Borough of Milton Keynes.

The draft South-East Plan, which includes proposals for tens of thousands of new homes in the Milton Keynes area up to 2021, also proposes that Milton Keynes should take 10% of London's residual waste. This will treble the amount of waste going into Milton Keynes's landfill site.

Announcing that the Liberal Democrats intend to fight these proposals, Councillor Douglas McCall, cabinet member for the environment, said: "It is bad enough that we are expected to take more than our fair share of the South-East's new homes, but it is completely unacceptable that the South-East Region are planning to dispose of 10% of London's waste here as well. Twice as much London waste as Milton Keynes waste would be dumped in our landfill site. Why should Milton Keynes become the dumping ground of the South-East? Milton Keynes does not currently take any waste from London."

Milton Keynes is set to grow by over 48,000 new homes over the next twenty years. This is more than double anywhere else in the South-East. Milton Keynes will need its only landfill site to take its own predicted increase in waste.

Douglas McCall added: "If 160,000 tonnes of London waste is brought to Milton Keynes every year, our own landfill site will fill up and we will have nowhere for our own waste. We are 50 miles away from London, yet areas much closer to London are not being asked to take nearly as much. It is not environmentally acceptable to transport waste such long distances. It is certainly against the Lib Dem-run Milton Keynes Council's own waste policies."

A report for the South-East England Region Assembly (SEERA) by waste experts, Jacobs Babtie, also shows that Milton Keynes is one of the least suitable areas geologically in the South-East for disposing of London's waste. Yet unbelievably they have suggested that Milton Keynes could take even more of London's waste - up to 12.6%.