INCINERATOR ‘WILL SOON NEED TO BE REPLACED’
173,000 tons of rubbish burned a year at Hanford
COUNCIL chiefs say Stokeon-trent’s new multi-million pound waste incinerator could be up-and-running by 2028.
Stoke-on-trent City Council is looking to replace the existing energy-fromwaste plant at Hanford, which dates back to the 1970s, with a new facility on the same site.
The incinerator burns 173,000 tons of rubbish from Stoke-on-trent and Staffordshire each year, producing electricity for the national grid and saving the city council from having to pay landfill fees and taxes.
But council officials say the facility is now ‘reaching the end of its useful economic life’ and will soon need to be replaced.
The authority is currently considering various options for the construction and operation of the new plant, and is planning to start the procurement process next year.
Members of the housing, development and growth committee were told that if all went according to plan, the facility would be operational by 2028 or 2029.
Options include the city council retaining ownership of the plant, or offering it as a concession to a private sector operator. The existing plant is run by Hanford Waste Services, with the current contract set to run until 2025.
Andrew Briggs, strategic manager for energy and sustainable infrastructure, said a third option would be to decommission the Hanford plant without replacing it and then simply pay to send the city’s waste elsewhere.
But Mr Briggs said this would not be an environmentally desirable option, and one which the council would seek to ‘avoid at all costs’. He added: “The market will decide what we’re capable of doing, but clearly we will choose the best commercial option.”
Phil Cresswell, director of housing, development and growth, told the committee that the post-pandemic economic situation, with inflation currently rocketing, meant it would be a tricky task to find contractors willing and able to take on the project.
He said: “While before the pandemic we would have done soft market testing, we’re now in a very different landscape. For example, tier one construction companies, by and large, have got full books and are being very choosey about taking on any additional work at all until the next inflationary rise in energy prices in September.”
But Mr Cresswell told the committee that even with these challenges, replacement, rather than refurbishment, was still the best option.