Veolia knocked out of WLWA multi-million contract

Human Rights campaigners in West London were celebrating today following the news that controversial multinational Veolia had failed to be short-listed for the lucrative 25 years residual waste management contract covering the boroughs of Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Ealing, Richmond and Brent.

More than 600 residents had written to the West London Waste Authority  requesting that Veolia be excluded on the grounds of racist practices in recruitment and grave misconduct through its active participation in violations of international and humanitarian laws and norms in the illegally occupied territories of Palestine. Last month Brent and Harrow Palestine Solidarity Campaign held a well-attended public meeting on the issue at Willesden Green Library.

Although, as is usual in these cases,  Veolia's failure to be short-listed cannot be directly attributed to the campaign, the WLWA joins a growing list of unsuccessful contract bids by Veolia.

The ground now shifts to environmental issues with the WLWA's consideration of 'solutions' submitted by the remaining 4 bidders to dealing with West London's waste.These will include possible new processing sites and environmentalists will be watching closely to see if any incinerators are planned,

Here is the statement from the WLWA website released yesterday:

The West London Waste Authority (WLWA) has short-listed four bidders for a long term West London Residual Waste Services contract covering the boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, and Richmond upon Thames.

Cory Environmental Ltd, E.ON Energy from Waste leading a consortium with Tata Chemicals Europe Limited with significant sub-contractor Grundon Waste Management Limited, SITA UK Ltd and Viridor Waste Management Ltd will now be invited to develop detailed solutions as the next stage in the competitive dialogue process that is being employed.

The contract involves treating up to 300,000 tonnes of residual waste per year generated by a population of 1.4 million people, and covers all aspects of treatment including any necessary transport, the operation of transfer stations, and contracts for outputs such as energy, refuse-derived fuel, recyclates etc.

Bids were invited from “single entity” companies, consortia, or joint ventures. The WLWA has offered its three waste transfer stations at Brentford, South Ruislip and Park Royal as part of the procurement but also welcomed proposals involving sites within bidders’ control or which they intend to acquire.

The next stage of the tender process will be the submission of detailed solutions by the short listed bidders in spring 2012. Two final bidders will then be selected to submit final tenders in autumn 2012. The preferred bidder will be selected in spring 2013. The new services will start in April 2015, but WLWA is exploring with bidders the opportunity for an earlier start to begin diversion from landfill as soon as possible.

West London already recycles or composts almost 40% of its household waste, more than any other sub region of London. The new contract will allow continued flexibility to increase recycling up to at least 50% by 2020 and WLWA will focus even more on waste minimisation schemes in the future.

Veolia's contract with the London Borough of Brent ends in 2014.

Ann John Steps Into 'Difficult' Negotiations with Veolia

Ann John, the Labour leader of Brent Council, is to meet with Veolia the controversial French multi-national, in an effort to resolve difficult and protracted negotiations over changes to its waste management contract.  Cllr Powney told last night's scrutiny committee that the talks had been 'complex', 'difficult' and 'complicated' and said that this was the reason Ann John was meeting with the company. Michael Read (Assistant Director, Policy and Regulation, Environment and Neighbourhood Services) quickly stepped in to say that such action was in line with previous practice. £1m was  due to be taken out of the Veolia contract. Powney said that the more time spent in negotiations the bigger the financial problem due to the delay. He was clearly vexed with Veolia who seem to have the Council over a barrel. The seven year waste contract ends in 2014 and the procurement process for the new contract will start soon. Clearly Veolia is trying to get as much out of its current contract as possible.

The protracted negotiations and Veolia's efforts to improve its profit margins, has led to further cuts in street cleaning in the borough. Outlying residential streets are to be swept only once a week from October, reduced from three times a week under the previous administration,  and weekend sweeping will stop at 2pm on Saturday and Sunday. The special seasonal leaf collection will end and leaves will now be swept up once a week along with litter. It was far from clear from officers' comments whether the sweepers will be able to cope with this along with the extra litter caused by the reduction, whethjer the leaves will be kept separate from litter, and if so whether they will be bagged for composting as they are at the moment. In response to Powney's claim that the tonnage of leaves was small and an officer's suggestion that it was a 'symbolic' service, Cllr Paul Lorber(Lib Dem)  said that nonetheless it was an important part of the Council's green agenda.

There was cross-party agreement on the health and safety danger of wet and rotting leaves underfoot and Cllr Shafique Choudhary (Labour) pointed out the particular dangers on the steep streets of the Barn Hill area. Paul Lorber asked about the legal risks of the cuts. Cllr Kabir said, "A lot of us are uncomfortable, particularly as it relates to our climate change strategy, but I am pleased that the Council is avoiding redundancies." (In fact although no Brent staff will be made redundant up to 50 Veolia staff will lose their jobs.)

Several councillors, including the chair of the committee Javaid Ashraf (Lib Dem) said that ward councillors would bear the brunt of residents' anger when they realised that their streets were not being swept as often and that their condition had deteriorated .Lorber said that the Executive should have consulted with ward councillors who were expert on their own local areas before these 'high profile and highly visible' changes were introduced. Cllr Powney suggested that the proposed councillor briefing on waste management should be extended to street cleansing. All the changes are due to take effect from October 3rd 2011.

The motion asking the Executive to reconsider the cuts was lost. The press and public (that meant me as I was the only one there) were excluded from a confidential 'below the line' item on this topic which may well have revealed more about the financial risk the Council is running in this area.

As if on cue Veolia has announced today that it is restructuring and reducing its involvement in many countries.
LINK following a half year loss of 67.2mln Euros against a previous profit of 374mln Euros. The shares fell 12.5% on the news.