Examination of Witnesses (Questin Numbers
320-330)
MR ANDREW
KINSEY AND
MR JON
DE SOUZA
19 NOVEMBER 2008
Q320 David Taylor: All right. Within
that project are there special arrangements?
Mr Kinsey: I think generally,
yes, there will be, or there are. Yes, for sure, and that is very
much along the lines of best practice that you will have seen
from Terminal 5 in terms of consolidation centres and all that
kind of stuff.
Q321 David Taylor: Have you put the
billion pounds for the Athletes' Village in place yet?
Mr Kinsey: I am not at liberty
to say!
Q322 David Taylor: Have you worked
on the Media and Broadcasting Centre for £400 million as
well?
Mr Kinsey: No, that is not my
project.
Chairman: I thought you were about to
suggest that the athletes might like to come and dig their own
village!
David Taylor: It is possible!
Q323 Chairman: Who knows? Can we
just conclude with a couple of questions about regulation and
waste crime, and enforcement? The Committee has been advised that
Defra is undertaking a review of the waste exemptions for environmental
permitting and some of the comments we have received suggest that
might encourage the use of virgin or new materials as opposed
to re-used or recycled materials. Could you comment on that and
tell us if there is any way you could set a sensible threshold
to determine the relative uses of new or re-used material in particular
situations?
Mr de Souza: We have had a strong
response from our members who put in a response to the consultation
and the feeling from within that membership is that they welcome
the proposal to increase the use of exemptions for low risk activities,
so actually resource can be put into looking at the higher risk
activities as a priority, but that in the proposal for the exemption
level to be at 500 cubic meters the material is far too low and
is likely to increase the use of virgin material. Our membership
has suggested that if the figure was about 10 times that, 5,000
cubic metres, it would be about right. At the moment there are
insufficient details on what would actually be required to obtain
a permit so the true cost implications of achieving the permit
are unknown as yet and our members have suggested that there needs
to be far more consultation with our sector to understand the
drivers from our sector and the particular types of waste and
approaches to waste management which are adopted.
Q324 Chairman: Could I persuade you,
perhaps, to write to us a little more fully on that because I
have to say that is somewhat beyond my experience and understanding,
particularly when you are talking about the size of parcels of
material which would be in and would be out? That is out of my
range of experience, but it is obviously an important point so
if you could write and just give us a little background note to
it and explain it a bit more that would be very helpful indeed.
Mr de Souza: Yes, absolutely.
Q325 Chairman: One of the things
which the Committee has had as a consistent theme through evidence
in this area is the general desire to see a real down on fly-tipping,
I think particularly from the point of view of landowners, who
have the unfortunate and expensive task of cleaning up after other
people have taken advantage of just dumping on their premises.
There has been a lot of comments about the resource which is available
for enforcement, in other words is the Environment Agency well
enough equipped and resourced on that? I suppose a lot of constituents
who we all have to deal with might blame the small jobbing builder
as the person who drops the odd parcel here, there and everywhere.
Of course, you represent the responsible end of the trade. That
is not to say that all jobbing builders are not responsible, but
how do you see the situation in terms of fly-tipping? I suppose
the worry one has is that as the economic situation becomes more
difficult and people look for ways of saving money, the temptation
to dump grows.
Mr de Souza: Firstly, we would
welcome an increase in enforcement action. I think that is certainly
required. There is a perception, and I get this from discussing
it with colleagues in the Environment Agency, that it is the smaller
constructors, the micro businesses, that are most guilty of waste
crime, fly-tipping. But hand-in-hand with any increase in enforcement
action I think there do need to be some positive steps to make
it easier for those micro businesses, the smaller constructors,
to actually dispose of their waste properly.
Q326 Chairman: Such as? In what ways
would you like to see easements?
Mr de Souza: We have had a pilot
scheme working in London in partnership with Wolseley, the builders'
merchant, to try and make one of the Wolseley sites down in East
Dulwich actually available for small builders for their customers
to bring back some of their waste and to segregate it on that
Wolseley site. There are certain concerns over the actual licensing
issues for the small builders to be able to do that.
Q327 Chairman: You mean from the
Wolseley point of view?
Mr de Souza: And also for any
of their customers who are bringing back their waste to that site,
who would then need a waste carrying licence and there is a cost
attached to that, obviously, and that would put people off. Secondly,
just to echo one of the points which came out of the previous
session from the gentleman from Somerset, there is an opportunity,
I think, for us to look at some of the local authority sites to
see if it is possible to use them for small amounts of trade waste
coming from very small businesses.
Q328 Chairman: Is it a cost issue
which lies at the heart of it in terms of the small builder responsibly
disposing of waste material, because when we walked the waste
chain I was quite impressed by the amount of material which, if
you like, to my layman's eye I would have considered rubble off
a demolition site which seemed to be able to be picked over and
ultimately reused, or where appropriate recycled?
Mr de Souza: I think there are
two things. There is a perception of cost which still sits within
certain sectors of the industry and really all that happens is
that that cost is passed on to the end client. Secondly, I think
it is the time/hassle factor. So if things can be done to make
life easier for small builders they are more likely to be able
to do positive things to segregate waste, for example.
Q329 Chairman: So not to put words
in your mouth but at a time when clearly the construction industry
is feeling a lot of economic pressure, your message perhaps to
us would be that Defra should look again at this area, taking
into account the current environment, to do all it could to make
it easier for responsible disposal rather than irresponsible?
Mr de Souza: Absolutely.
Mr Kinsey: I would agree with
that because one of the concerns, although we generally welcome
the fact that the Landfill Tax is there to help us encourage recycling,
is that the flip side of that coin is that it encourages fly-tipping,
does it not? The economic conditions that we are currently in
as well kind of promote that potential activity. So the regulatory
regime needs to be pretty robust to make sure this is not going
to happen. We certainly make a lot of effort and spend a lot of
time talking to potential waste companies or trade contractors
who end up dealing with their own waste to try and make sure they
are legally compliant. We go and visit transfer stations and check
out duty of care transfer notes and all that sort of stuff. So
there is quite a lot of resource we put into policing it ourselves,
if you like, but that is no substitute for the real thing, the
real policemen, if you like.
Q330 Chairman: From the industry's
standpoint have you done any work calculating what the deficit
is in terms of resource for enforcement? Have you taken a cockshy
at that, or is it just a general message that you would like to
see more of it?
Mr de Souza: I am not aware of
any work that has been done.
Mr Kinsey: I am not sure. All
we can just generally relay is the fact that we do not see much
of these guys.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much
indeed for your contribution to our inquiry and, Mr de Souza,
thank you also for volunteering to write a little more fully on
the penultimate point we raised. Thank you both for your contribution.
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