News: Plans submitted for Rotherham waste facility

The detailed planning application for a new waste recycling centre in Manvers, Rotherham has been submitted.

In April, specialist waste organisation 3SE was named as the preferred bidder in principle for the contract to develop a facility to treat leftover household waste from Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham.

A partnership between Shanks Group plc and SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy plc), 3SE plans to use three sites to treat waste with the new facility adjacent to the NEXT warehouse at Brookfield's Park in Manvers, designed to create material suitable for recovery and recycling.

The facility would receive up to 265,000 tonnes per annum of municipal solid waste and Shanks estimates that the 25 year contract has a revenue value of £750m.

The three councils secured £77m through the Private Finance Initiative for the scheme and Shanks believes that the contract will reach financial close this calendar year.

The plans, put together by consultants, Mouchel, are for 20,500 sq m of buildings on six hectares of brownfield land which was once part of the former Manvers Colliery spoil tip and coke works. The buildings include the main intelligent transfer station (ITS) and anaerobic digestion (AD) buildings, together with an administration and visitor centre building, workshop, weighbridge and gatehouse.

The plans state that: "3SE will manage residual waste from the three BDR authorities at the proposed facility in a four stage treatment process; shredding, biodrying, refinement and anaerobic digestion. The facility has been designed to manage the peak waste generation that the three authorities will generate.

"The overall aim of the four stage process is to create material suitable for recovery and recycling, whilst stabilising the remaining fraction as a pre-treatment for landfill. Waste is aerated to stabilise and sanitise the material. The aerated material is then separated into seven fractions by a combination of sieving, weight separation and metal extraction."

These include Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF), biodegradable material (fines), glass, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, plastics and residuals for landfill.

The solid fuel recovered will then be transported to a proposed multi-fuel plant next to the existing coal-fired power station at Ferrybridge, where it will be used to generate electricity. 3SE recently received consent from the Department of Energy and Climate Change to develop an up to 108MW multi-fuel project within its existing Ferrybridge site.

The biodegradable material (fines) will be moved to anaerobic digestion plant on the Manvers site where they will be processed organically to create biogas for fuel. Leftover material will be used in landfill remediation projects as a soil improver. The total annual capacity of the AD facility is 18,000 tonnes.

The Manvers plant is expected to create 40 jobs with more in the construction phase. Construction is expected to take 28 months with completion scheduled for winter 2014. After a period of testing, the plant is expected to become fully operational in spring 2015.

The submission of plans follows an extensive programme of public consultation which has seen details of local residents' feedback published online.

Stephen Ray, bid director for Shanks, said: "We are grateful to everyone who has given us their comments so far. I would like to stress that the dialogue does not stop now that the application has been submitted.

"We are setting up a Community Liaison Group so that we can continue to engage with local residents. We will also be organising a local supplier day in the New Year so that we can meet local businesses to discuss opportunities for them to provide goods and services for the new plant, subject of course to our obtaining planning permission."

The application will be scrutinised by statutory consultees including the three local authorities before it is considered by Rotherham Council's planning committee next year.

BDR Waste Partnership website
Online planning application

Images: 3SE / Mouchel