Petition No. 35 (Waste Recycling Group Ltd, WRG
Waste Services Ltd, and Anti Waste Ltd)
30. The fifth petition, also a petition of amendment,
came from WRG, which also owns rights in some of the land that
Covanta would be entitled compulsorily to purchase under the Order.
The petition proposed amendments that would have excluded from
the powers over land conferred by articles 17 to 26 of the Order
all land and all rights and interests in or over land that were
owned by the companies on 22 November 2011.
31. WRG did, to their credit, present a case
based on the 'special land' provisions that triggered our proceedings.
Their land is not, in fact, 'special land', but some of it is
believed to be directly below the special land (the highway authority
owns the top two spits of the land, but the subsoil beneath is
owned by the companies). They also demonstrated that the introduction
of the large Covanta facility would have a substantial impact
on the area's waste management market, in which WRG is one of
several competitors. They argued, too, that a restrictive covenant
that currently applies to part of their land, and which would
prevent the Covanta facility from being built, should not be overreached.
32. We do not doubt that the introduction into
the area of a new and large-scale competitor will present commercial
challenges to WRG and to others in the local waste management
industry. That is, however, no reason for us to object to the
Order. We note, too, that the Order already contains provision
for WRG and the other companies concerned to receive compensation
for the loss of rights in the land that Covanta will purchase
under the Order. We concluded that there was no case to answer
in respect of petition No. 35.
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