Liberal Democrats angered by continued secrecy over incinerator business case (Suffolk County Council Liberal Democrats)

Suffolk County Council Liberal Democrats <info@suffolkcclibdems.org.uk>

Liberal Democrats angered by continued secrecy over incinerator business case

January 3, 2008 4:14 PM

Liberal Democrats on Suffolk County Council reacted with anger to administration refusals to release the outline business case for the proposed incinerator for Suffolk.

An initial request for a copy of the document was made in early December. This will not be released, following censure of some passages, until more than a month after the initial request was made. This is despite the administration recently admitting most of the information could not be withheld. Liberal Democrats want this information in order to satisfy the public that concerns the administrations approach does not put public health first are investigated. (It is believed that the criteria the administration sets out for choosing options in the document consider public health and environmental concerns to be less important than other matters.)

Speaking about the report, Cllr Andrew Cann, Deputy Leader of the Libdems on the County Council, said, "I've been speaking to my Liberal Democrat colleagues up in Norfolk who have successfully stopped the Conservatives there building an incinerator and they tell me some worrying things about the possible health affects of incineration.

I've asked the Administration for a copy of the report so I can assure the public that there are no concerns about the health based and environmental aspects of incinerators and that they are no worse than other forms of waste technology - Mechanical and Biological Treatment for example.

I was initially told that access to all the information was on a 'need to know' basis and I would need to demonstrate this. I think all the people of Suffolk and their elected representatives have a 'need to know' about what the County Council is doing with their money. It seems the Tory administration thinks differently and thinks it has a right to withhold information from the public even after finally conceding this information should be in the public domain.

I think councillors outside the Cabinet and members of the public should have a right to see this sort of information baring any specifically commercial information. To be helpful I've suggested that if they had concerns about any financial information in the document they were more than welcome to blank those sections out and I would be happy to receive the document in that state. That suggestion was made over a week ago. Unfortunately, despite persistently asking since early December the Administration now tells me I will not receive the document until January 9th. This will be more than one month since the initial enquiry was made.

I can only conclude that the administration is trying to stonewall me, but to what purpose? What is it that they are trying to hide?"