Local authorities may increasingly decide to act as commercial lenders on major waste infrastructure deals as the pot of PFI money begins to dry up, a waste project finance expert claimed yesterday Join discussion...

North Yorkshire and City of York councils have become the latest local authorities to admit that the economic downturn has contributed to a delay in the procurement of their PFI waste contract. The councils, which received £65 million in PFI funds to jointly procure waste treatment infrastructure more than two years ago (see letsrecycle.com story), had hoped to invite final tenders from the two remaining bidders for the 25-year deal in December 2008 Join discussion...

Manchester-based wood recycling company Hadfield Wood Recyclers has announced it has secured a five-year deal to take the waste wood collected by Viridor as part of the Greater Manchester PFI deal. The company, which has its headquarters in Drolysden in East Manchester, has already collected waste wood from civic amenity sites across Greater Manchester for more than five years under a deal with Greater Manchester Waste Ltd Join discussion...

Waste management is the "new powerhouse" in PFI and there is "cautious optimism" in the financial sector over supporting major PFI waste projects, an investment expert has claimed. Speaking last Wednesday (June 10) at the Futuresource conference in London, Mark Dooley, executive director and head of infrastructure at Australian investment firm Macquarries, claimed that, despite the economic downturn proving a "massive obstacle", the waste management sector could now claim to be the "new powerhouse" in PFI. Join discussion...

Defra has awarded £129.1 million in PFI funding to a long term waste management project involving a partnership of three West Midlands councils. The joint initiative called ‘Project Transform' - which is comprised of Coventry city council, Solihull metropolitan borough council and Warwickshire county council - is set to use the funding to help develop a 305,000 tonne-a-year capacity energy-from-waste (EfW) facility to help serve the region's waste disposal needs. Join discussion...

Cumbria county council and Shanks today (June 4) announced they have reached financial close on their £720 million, 25-year public private partnership (PPP) contract. The deal, which begins immediately, will see the Milton Keynes-based company building two 75,000 tonne-a-year capacity mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facilities to treat the county's residual household waste, as well as take over the management of the county's household waste recycling centres. The Cumbrian MBT facilities are expected to use a similar process to the one Shanks uses at its Dumfries plant Altogether, Shanks will be dealing with 220,000 tonnes a year of Cumbria's waste, as the county seeks to divert 67% of its household waste from landfill by 2015. Join discussion...

Viridor's pre-tax profits grew by 13% in 2008/09, despite the amount of waste the company landfilled and its profits from the sale of recyclables falling as the economic slowdown hit in the second half of the year, it emerged today (June 2). Preliminary results published by the waste management company's parent firm, Pennon Group, show that Viridor's profit before interest, tax and amortisation of intangibles (PBITA) was £65.5 million for 2008/09, compared to £58.1 million - a rise of £7.4 million. Join discussion...

According to local press reports, Northumberland County Council has allowed its PFI partner, waste specialist Sita UK, to recycle 2% less waste because the company is struggling to sell recycled material. Join discussion...