Contract and Finance for the Residual Waste Management facility - Find a freedom of information request

I wish to request information about the Contract and Finance for the Council's Residual Waste Management facility and its eventual aftermath. 

 

1. What are the duration, start, end and extended-end dates of the current contract?

2. What are the status and terms of the Providential Borrowing scheme and any other

relevant financing arrangements to which the Council is a party?

3. Who are parties to the contract, or to an agreement with the City Council for joint use

of the facilities?*

4. Are there any planning conditions that have a bearing upon the land uses and/or

facilities?

5. Please provide the Contract's current contents, amended and updated if need be.

6. Is there a plan and/or process for handling of residual waste beyond the ending of the

current contract? (e.g. since the present facility '… does not have the capacity to

process the forecasted qualities of residual waste', if that's still the case.

7. Are there any other, recent (within 5 years) public documents of policy/strategy/

framework that are relevant to that ending stage?**

8. Is there a separate contract for heat off-take for district/industrial heating? (CHP) If so

please provide a copy.

9. Is there a technical proposal for carbon capture from emissions, e.g. for usage (CCU),

sequestration (CCS) or both (CCUS)

We are satisfied that the information you are seeking disclosure of is “environmental” information as it relates to information on  "factors, such as substances, energy, noise, radiation or waste, including radioactive waste, emissions, discharges and other releases into the environment, affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment…" under Regulation 2(1)(b) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) and also "measures (including administrative measures), such as policies, legislation, plans, programmes, environmental agreements, and activities affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors referred to in 2(1)(b), as well as measures or activities designed to protect those elements" under Regulation 2(1)(c).

The information requested is therefore exempt from disclosure under section 39 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) as it relates to environmental information.  Requests for environmental information must be considered for disclosure under the terms of the EIR, rather than the FOIA and we have therefore considered your request under the EIR.

1. Contract duration is 25 years total, start date for service period of the contract was 2013, the end date is 2038 and there is no extension to the end date currently

2. Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) funds its Capital Expenditure in total each year, not scheme specific, by the following sources: 

Revenue Contributions

Capital Receipts

Grants and Contributions

Reserves

Borrowing (Balancing figure known as the ‘Borrowing Requirement’)

The Borrowing Requirement can be from External Sources or from Internal Funds known as Internal Borrowing.

External Sources are mainly from the Government through its Public Works Loans Board at rates close to gilts, or from banks in the money market, or from other Councils.

External borrowing can be long term or short term depending on market conditions at the time.

The current cost of the Council’s external borrowing is 3.698%.  Total external borrowing stands at £449.1m.

3. Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) & FCC Environment

4.Information related to planning conditions for this site can be found at https://lincolnshire.planning-register.co.uk/ and https://planningonline.n-kesteven.gov.uk/online-applications/.

5. Lincolnshire County Council considers that this information is exempt from disclosure under Regulation 12(5)(e) of the Environmental information Regulations 2004 (EIR).

Under Regulation 12(5)(e) Lincolnshire County Council may refuse to disclose information to the extent that its disclosure would adversely affect the confidentiality of commercial or industrial information where such confidentiality is provided by law to protect a legitimate economic interest. We are satisfied that the public interest also favours withholding this information.

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6.No. As stated above the service period of the contract ends in 2038.

 
7.Not currently.

8. No, this was a consideration towards the beginning of the contract, however, there was lack of local interest.

9.No technical proposal for any of these aspects currently.