Examination of Witness (Questions 293
- 299)
TUESDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2000
SALLY CAMPBELL
Chairman
293. Can I welcome you to the Committee for
the third session this morning, and would you like to introduce
yourself for the record, please?
(Ms Campbell) Yes. My name is Sally Campbell. I am
a company director of the South West England Environmental Trust;
its acronym is SWEET.
294. Do you want to say anything by way of introduction,
or are you happy for us to go straight to questions?
(Ms Campbell) No, I think you can go straight to questions.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mrs Ellman
295. What benefits have the Landfill Tax Credit
Scheme brought?
(Ms Campbell) Generally, right across?
296. Specifically, generally and specifically?
(Ms Campbell) I think, specifically, it has delivered
a large number of very interesting projects that have helped lots
of communities in a variety of ways. As you know, the Landfill
Tax Credit Scheme covers five different areas of compliance, or
criteria, that they can support, and because of that you have
seen a lot of local amenity projects and projects that improve
places of worship, and those are of great benefit, especially
in rural communities. But the places where I think it could be
of the greatest benefit are in sustainable waste management practices,
which are projects under Categories C and CC, as the current regulations
are written; and in these categories there is a broad range of
projects that could be supported, some that are being supported.
297. Which are being supported: what has actually
been achieved?
(Ms Campbell) There is a lot that is being done in
education, education into sustainable waste management practices;
there are a lot of projects in recycling, developing of recycling
infrastructure for some local authorities, especially kerbside
collections. What could be achieved is, some of the money could
be used to run pilot projects to show improvement or any increase
in different types of recycling manufacturing structures, or reprocessing
processes.
298. Have you actually evaluated what has been
achieved up to date?
(Ms Campbell) As a company, we cannot evaluate what
is being achieved up to date, in terms of the country, we can
only evaluate the projects that either go through our books, or,
as a company, we administer other environmental bodies and the
projects that go through their books.
299. Have you evaluated those things that you
are able to?
(Ms Campbell) We have evaluated it to a certain extent,
yes, but we have not done a cost/benefit analysis on them. We
have evaluated them in terms of the amount, or tonnages, of waste
that are removed for the civic amenities site projects. There
have been various projects where we have actually been able to
fund an infrastructure for a civic amenity site down in Devon;
now that community did not have one, the local authority wanted
one, we got two waste management companies together to provide
one. And that has a huge benefit to the community, because, before,
they did not have any place to bring their waste, now they do.
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