Agenda item

AGREED that Cabinet:

a)       approve the future development plan (Option 4) as set out in the attached study at Appendix A and described in the report;

b)       approve that a planning application is prepared and submitted for the permanent siting of the glass bulking facility at the Lorry Park in Newark;

c)        approve a first phase investment of £669,000 including contingency, inflation, and fees, at Brunel Drive and Farrar Close and equivalent budget being added to the Capital Programme for 25/26, in line with the timescales and phasing set out in the report; and

d)       give delegated authority to the Directors of Communities and Environment and Housing, Health and Wellbeing, in consultation with the Portfolio Holders, to tender and deliver the phased programme of investments in line with the indicative timescale set out in the report.

The Director – Communities & Environment presented a report which put forward proposals for the future development of the Brunel Drive depot site, Farrar Close and the glass recycling facility at the Lorry Park, following a strategic review of the Council’s future needs.

The report set out a comprehensive background to the proposals and the Appendix gave a detailed analysis of the Brunel Drive site and Farar Close. The analysis specifically looked at trying to accommodate all the Council’s current and future needs from the site, a permanent glass bulking facility, ten new food waste vehicles, new staff vehicles and better visitor access to the museum store. The appended analysis identified four potential Master Plan options which could be accommodated in three phases. Two of these options were discounted from the outset and options three and four covered in full the report.

AGREED     (unanimously) that Cabinet:

a)           approve the future development plan (Option 4) as set out in the attached study at Appendix A and described in the report;

b)          approve that a planning application is prepared and submitted for the permanent siting of the glass bulking facility at the Lorry Park in Newark;

c)           approve a first phase investment of £669,000 including contingency, inflation, and fees, at Brunel Drive and Farrar Close and equivalent budget being added to the Capital Programme for 25/26, in line with the timescales and phasing set out in the report; and

d)          give delegated authority to the Directors of Communities and Environment and Housing, Health and Wellbeing, in consultation with the Portfolio Holders, to tender and deliver the phased programme of investments in line with the indicative timescale set out in the report.

Reasons for Decision:

The recommendations align with the Community Plan objectives in relation to the environment and climate change, whilst waste and recycling always features at the top of any resident polling about the services provided by the Council which matter most to them. The proposals are the most cost-effective in the circumstances and are legislatively and operationally deliverable. They facilitate effective changes in the use of buildings which are no longer required. They also facilitate the Council’s ability to accommodate the long-term delivery of new services from the existing site, including food waste, and in time may open up exciting opportunities to enable public access into the Council’s museum store. Whilst there has been a prolonged impasse in terms of national waste and recycling policy and how that is to be funded, the previous Government stated they would not be funding new depots or changes to depots with the rollout of a kerbside food waste collection service and there is no real reason currently to believe that stance will change. As such, Councils will need to arrange and fund their own requirements, which is what these proposals do. 

Options Considered:

The study appended to this report sets out that it is not operationally, legislatively, or financially cost-effective for the Council to try to accommodate all of its future needs on the existing Brunel Drive and Farrar Road sites., as well accommodating the glass bulking facility on that site.

The Council could look to purchase a wholly new site, but this would be financially prohibitive and is not necessary given the ability to accommodate much of the Council’s operations on the existing site, whilst taking advantage of some buildings on the site which are no longer required or soon could be surplus to requirements. 

The Council could look to find an alternative site for the glass bulking station now situated on the Lorry Park. However, this would require the purchase or lease of additional land and the additional construction of a glass bulking facility, which already exists on the Lorry Park. This option would carry unnecessary additional costs. Furthermore, suitable locations are likely to be very challenging to find in order to meet the Environment Agency’s permitting regime and planning permission. Efforts to find an alternative site to the Lorry Park in 2023 did not yield a suitable alternative.

The Council could forego the income generated through a glass bulking site and simply take the glass to the Veolia Materials Recovery Facility at Mansfield. In this way the Council would preserve the much-requested kerbside glass recycling service, but would lose a significant quantum of the forecasted £165,000 annual income being generated through the current model, which offsets some of the costs of providing the service.