Norfolk County Council voted by 48 votes to 30 to terminate the contract for the proposed incinerator at Saddlebow in an extraordinary meeting in April.

Council officers had said that, due to delays in securing planning permission, the contentious project no longer provided good value for money, and councillors agreed to ditch it.

In May, the estimated cost of cancelling the contract was put at just over #33.7m. That included #20.3m to Cory Wheelabrator – the company that would have built and run the burner; public question costs of #1.6m and estimated interest rate associated expenses of #11.8m.

The first #11.8m of this bill was paid in July, but council bosses are locked in months of discussions about the fine details of the contract and how much that means the council must pay Cory Wheelabrator.
In September, it was announced the compensation will be”substantially lower” than the #20.3m originally estimated.

But in a meeting this week, Tom McCabe, interim director of environment, transport and development in Norfolk County Council, told councillors that the final figure had yet to be agreed.

He said:”The conversation with Cory Wheelabrator is continuing and we would expect to have it resolved by Christmas.

“It is premature to say it will be done by then, however. It could be done before that it could drag on for more.”
Norfolk County Council is still trying to come up with a long-term solution to how to deal with the county’s waste.

But, in the short-term, a deal has been struck by their counterparts in Suffolk for rubbish to be burnt at a newly-built incinerator in Great Blakenham.

Over the next year, about 40,000 tonnes of Norfolk’s residual household waste will be hauled down the A140 to be burned at the plant.

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