Norfolk waste PFI in limbo

While the council has approved the scheme for a PFI-funded incinerator, the deal could yet be scuppered after Pickles last month issued a holding notice revealing he was considering calling in the decision.

However, the minister failed to give any indication of how long he would take to decide whether or not to call-in the decision, leaving uncertainty over when the future of the scheme might be resolved.

“We are pressing the communities department to give us an indication,” said a source close to the project.

King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council – where the incinerator will be based – applied for judicial review of Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman’s decision to award PFI credits to the project earlier this year.

Pickles intervened in June, days before Norfolk council voted in favour of the project.

For more information on the scheme, click here.