Breaking: Community R4C Exposes Hidden Costs of Gloucestershire’s Incinerator Contract

Community R4C, a community-owned organisation advocating for lower-cost,
environmentally sustainable waste management, has published a damning report on the
extraordinary financial impact of the Gloucestershire County Council’s (GCC) waste
incineration contract at Javelin Park. Far from delivering promised savings, the contract has
cost taxpayers millions more than landfill and is set to become even more expensive with the
application of UK ETS to incineration from 2028, a form of carbon tax.

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The Future of Community R4C - what's next?

Many of you will be aware that Gloucestershire County Council took legal action in 2022 to forcibly wind up Community R4C Ltd, our original Community Benefit Society. This decision was taken despite strong opposition from across the political spectrum – with councillors from the Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Green parties, as well as our local MP, expressing clear support for our work and objecting to the action.

This move cost the Council tens of thousands of pounds in legal fees, and flew in the face of public interest, particularly at a time when building a community-led circular economy should have been actively encouraged – not shut down.

But while the legal entity was dissolved, Community R4C lives on. All intellectual property – including our brand, website, data, and technology – is now held by a new unincorporated association, which continues under the name Community R4C. Our work continues: pressing for waste system reform, contract accountability, and circular economy solutions for Gloucestershire.

Should the opportunity arise to set up a new community-owned enterprise to support initiatives such as residual waste pre-sorting or a reuse facility, we are ready to do so. If such a company is created, we intend to offer all original Community R4C investors new shares equivalent to the value of their previous investment, should they wish to re-engage.

We welcome all thoughts on this proposal – and we would especially like to hear from anyone interested in taking an active role in shaping this next phase.

In the mean time Community R4C members will continue to support actions to seek to reduce incineration in the County and pursue our aims of an exemplar, community engaged circular economy in Gloucestershire. Please see our latest newsletter for more details.

If you’d like to be involved, or just want to share your perspective, please contact us.

Javelin Park Incinerator – So called ‘Energy from Waste’ plant built by UBB under contract for Gloucestershire County Council (GCC)

In early 2017 Community R4C Directors raised a formal challenge to the accounts of Gloucestershire County Council (GCC), this has been the subject of a long running review by the Auditors, Grant Thornton. Finally, after 4 ½ years the report was released, but only AFTER the local elections had been held, in defiance of principles in a Freedom of Information ruling by Judge Shanks who held that the electorate should be able to know and act on the details of the contract. It promised to open the lid on this important issue, answering questions about how the county secretly committed to the most expensive incinerator contract in the country, and what can be done about it.

Grant Thornton had stated that they would (subject to confirmation) issue a formal report in the public interest (PIR), an important statement about things that had gone wrong in the contracting process and recommendations. See here

The Chair of Gloucestershire County Council Audit committee gave an important speech – COUNTY AUDIT CHIEF BLAMES JAVELIN PARK ENQUIRY DELAY ON ‘COVER UP’ BY COUNCIL LEADERS.

However in a dramatic change of heart Grant Thornton (GT) and their senior partner John Gregory, removed this conclusion of a PIR, in a move which the objectors and our barrister believe was improperly influenced by a conflict of interest, GCC are a major client of GT and have paid GT many £100k during the period of this audit. See GRANT THORNTON REPORT IS A WHITEWASH, AFTER ALL

In June 2022 on behalf of all objectors and local community supporters, Tom Jarman submitted a formal complaint to the Auditors Grant Thornton and their lead auditors Peter Barber and John Gregory. This complaint has been notified to the Chief Executive of the Public Sector Audit Appointments – PSAA.

 

Complaint to Grant Thornton
What is a “Public Interest Report” the public was promised?
Click here to read about the audit challenge!

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