Open letter to:
Durham County Council
Darlington Borough Council
Hartlepool Borough Council
Middlesbrough Council Chris Cooke
Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council
Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council
Newcastle City Council
11 May 2025
Dear Councillors
As Councillors at North Yorkshire Council, we would like to share our recent lived experience of being tied into a contract with the incinerator at Allerton Waste Recycling Plant (AWRP).
We had 69 permit breaches last year[1]. We have never hit our 5% recovery rate[2], which currently sits at 1.78%. A major rodent infestation caused a shutdown and major damage last year. The contract is extremely time-intensive to manage[3].
You cannot know what the waste landscape and what new regulations and technologies will emerge in the next 25 years. For us, it has become clear what the consequences of a long-term contract are can be. This is our lived experience.
The schedule for guaranteed waste delivered by the Council is set out for the whole of the contract in advance. For AWRP, the amount of waste we have to deliver goes up each year of the contract, whilst UK targets are trying to drive residual waste down. This has had the following consequences:
- When the Environment Act mandated household food waste collections in 2026, the Council realised it was unable to deliver this without crippling penalties. It sent the contract to Defra, they concurred and gave them an exemption until 2043. [4]
- In 2043, York and North Yorkshire will be the last counties in England to deliver food waste collections.[5]
- The consequences then cascade. North Yorkshire missed out on transitional funding from the government, and they don’t know if in 2043 they will have to bear the financial burden of delivering food waste collections alone.
- Incinerators are highly technical. It’s not just the tonnage commitment that causes issues – if a council changes the mix of waste, it causes calorific imbalance that can have financial implications for the Council.
- And of course there’s the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) – the payments the Council must pay for carbon emitted. Because it’s not a tax and tied to markets, councils don’t know what to budget for ETS. North Yorkshire Council has budgeted £6m for 2028[6], but that figure is a best guess, and the year it comes in – but it could be several million pounds out.
So for Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility, depending on what the guaranteed tonnages are, the seven councils could be tying into a contract with unknown consequences that prevent them from making unforeseen changes and improvements to their waste collections, stopping them from making financial savings, meeting their statutory obligations, and potentially benefiting from future government funding.
We would strongly recommend that your councils look before you leap, and think very carefully before committing to this long-term contract.
Yours sincerely
The Green Party Group
North Yorkshire Council
Co-signed:
Cllr Kevin Foster
Cllr Arnold Warneken
Cllr Andy Brown
Cllr David Noland
For further information, please contact: Cllr Arnold Warneken.
cllr.arnold.warneken@northyorks.gov.uk
Further information and sources
The Allerton Waste Recovery Park contract is 25 years, starting 2019. It is a partnership between North Yorkshire Council, York City Council and operator Thalia (originally Amey Cespa). It was voted in back in 2012, in spite of a petition against it carrying 10,000 signatures.
Sources of facts and figures cited:
[1] Thalia Annual Performance Report 2024 Allerton Waste Recovery Park ‘Operational Data’ tab – not yet on Defra website but available in XLS format here: https://ukwin.org.uk/incinerators/library/North+Yorkshire/228
[2] Transport, Economy, Environment and Enterprise Overview and Scrutiny Committee 17 October 2024 – reports pack item 6.3
[3] . “It has been acknowledged that the resources required for effective management and supervision of contracts with Amey Cespa and Yorwaste are greater than originally assessed”.York City Council Report to the Executive 2021, https://democracy.york.gov.uk/documents/s148147/Joint%20Waste%20Service.pdf
[4] Stated in the minutes of the Meeting of Transport, Economy, Environment and Enterprise Scrutiny Committee 25 May 2023.
[5] A full list of councils with transitional arrangements can be found here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/639/schedule/made
[6] North Yorkshire Council budget item 4.2.4 https://edemocracy.northyorks.gov.uk/documents/s48232/Revenue%20Budget%20for%20202526%20and%20Medium%20Term%20Financial%20Strategy%20for%20202627%20to%20202728.pdf
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