Incinerator forms no part of clean air proposals

PLANS to tackle air pollution linked to 900 deaths in Birmingham per year have been criticised for not mentioning the Tyseley incinerator.

Birmingham City Council’s cabinet this week gave the green light to a consultation on the council’s new air quality action plan, revising its aims from 2011.

A key element of the plan is the Clean Air Zone (CAZ) which will charge high-polluting vehicles for entering the city centre and is due to come into force in 2021.

According to Defra modelling, the concentration of NO2 in Birmingham’s air is up to 50 per cent higher than it should be.

Other city council measures mentioned in the plan include schemes to promote cycling and walking and the upcoming e-scooter trial, intended to reduce car use.

But Cllr Robert Alden, leader of the opposition Conservative group, criticised the report for not mentioning factors such as the Tyseley incinerator.

The incinerator, part of the Tyseley Energy Recovery Facility (ERF), is said to be the largest single source of NO2 in the city.

The council is considering bids from providers to continue burning waste at the site until at least 2034 – past the city’s target carbon neutral date of 2030. Opponents want the incinerator to be replaced with less-polluting waste alternatives, and energy experts have said the incinerator could be made “redundant or residual” in as little as five years.

Cllr Alden told a cabinet meeting: “Instead of having real strategic change in it as previous plans had, the action plan does not do much more than reflect the current policies of the administration.

“There is no mention in it around the incinerator, there’s very little around green infrastructure, there is nothing on an urban consolidation centre for fleet vehicles to stop all the fleet traffic in the city.”

He said previous aims to expand park and ride measures and electric vehicle charging points have not been met, and called the CAZ a “travel tax”.

Cllr Waseem Zaffar (Lab), cabinet member for transport and environment, said: “To achieve the ministerial direction of being compliant in the shortest possible time, we looked at various modelling available and various CAZs available.

“[A non-charging CAZ] would have made the air quality in Birmingham a lot worse.”

He said modelling of the CAZ option the council has opted for will still not necessarily lead to the city’s air quality meeting targets in every location.

As a result, he said there may need to be “modifications to the highway network as well”.