The Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility (TV ERF), also known as the Grangetown incinerator, has been in the news a lot recently. In the latest episode of the soap opera, the losing bidder for the TV ERF contract, Green Recovery Projects Limited, is understood to have filed a civil claim in the High Court last month against Hartlepool Council. What has Hartlepool Council got to do with this? Well it’s the lead local authority among the seven partners responsible for the Grangetown incinerator. The sensible thing to do would have been to give this responsibility to the borough in which the incinerator is supposed to be getting built, ie Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council (RCBC). But Ben Houchen’s close friend Denise McGuckin doesn’t run RCBC. Do keep up.
Back to the fray
Away from the law courts and Hartlepool Civic Centre, real people were holding a public meeting about the Grangetown incinerator. Two local pressure groups, Stop Incineration North East (SINE) and Medact North East had combined for the second time to make people aware of the issue. The first meeting, in November 2024, had been held at the Eston & Normanby Social Club, and we returned there on 28 January 2025, to be welcomed by the chairman Dave Howe
Second time around?
But this meeting would be very different from November’s, due to two separate but related factors. Firstly, SINE had won a significant victory only days previously, when they had successfully blocked a new incinerator for the first time. This was a hazardous waste incinerator, proposed to be built by CSG at Wilton International. This incinerator, the so-called Wilton Waste Treatment Plant, has been planned to be built on the other side of Grangetown from the proposed TV ERF.
When you see a bandwagon, jump aboard
The other was in which this meeting was different from last time was that, in the interim period between the two of them, local MP Anna Turley had listened to her constituents’ concerns and announced her opposition to the Grangetown incinerator. This provoked an astonishing backlash from Denise McGuckin, the project leader. McGuckin sent an open letter to Anna Turley, which contained so many screeds that it reminded history fans of the day that Martin Luther nailed his wish list to the door of his local church.
If you didn’t think that this episode was barmy enough, the next one outdid it. The local Conservative party, aided by their client media, deliberately misconstrued Anna Turley’s motivations and insisted that she had joined THEM in opposition to the Grangetown incinerator.
And so the three local Normanby Conservative councillors piled in, as is their wont. Their colleague Peter Grogan represents a ward over in Redcar, but he never misses the opportunity for some populist opportunism either.
But the rest of the RCBC conservatives showed up. Six of them, when there were none last time. This included their leader Carolyn Curr, on her first ever trip from Guisborough to Normanby. You should come back during the day next time, Carolyn. It’s really not such a bad place. The ambitious Paul Savlin is the unofficial leader of this group though, as he plots his next move, nomination by the Redcar conservative party as their candidate for the parliamentary election in 2028.
So what would a group of conservative councillors look like in a group photograph? From left to right, David Taylor (Eston), Carolyn Curr (Belmont), Stephen Martin (Eston), Peter Grogan (Kirkleatham), Paul Salvin (Normanby) and Paul McInnes (Normanby). I’ll cut Stephen Martin and Paul McInnes some slack though. Stephen was one of the five councillors who had voted down the hazardous waste incinerator at Redcar Civic Hall the previous week, with support from Paul McInnes.
Let’s Go! With Labour!
Two labour councillors, Neil Bendelow of South Bank, and John McCue of Skelton West, were at the meeting. Neither of the two Grangetown councillors showed up though. But one of them, Lynn Pallister, had led the vote that took down the Wilton hazardous waste incinerator on 23 January. Jemma Joy represented the Liberal Democrats, as she had done at the first meeting. So this meant that, in all, nine local councillors attended the public meeting. Only two had been at the first one, so things seem to be stepping up nicely. Neil, John and Joy can be seen in the photos below:
Meet the crew
And so to the presentation. Stop Incineration North East (SINE) was represented by co-coordinators Paul Foster and TeeTee, along with Mick Johnstone and Joanne Ashwood. Alongside SINE, Medact, an organisation of health professionals, sent three members, as they had done last time. Medact’s North East branch sent three representatives from Newcastle and Hexham down to Teesside – Drs Gill Turner, Matthew Keegan and Emily Parker. These people are professionals in every way, giving up their free time at the end of a long, demanding working day, and not getting home until midnight. It was a privilege to spend two hours with them. They can be seen in the photo below, alongside SINE’s Mick Johnstone, in the black sweater. Mick isn’t a doctor, at least as far as I know.
SINE presentation
The meeting began with an introduction by Paul Foster, followed by a powerpoint presentation by ‘TeeTee’, outlining the journey of the Grangetown incinerator, and clearly explaining the many reasons why it should never see the light of day.
Medact presentation
There followed a presentation by Medact’s Gill Turner. Gill highlighted that incinerators are three times more likely to be built in disadvantaged areas than wealthier ones. Another key point was that climate change is the biggest threat to human health throughout the world, and the incinerator will only worsen things locally.
Question and answer session
Time for a Question and Answer session, led by the three Medact doctors, and Paul Foster of SINE. I’ve summarized the key takeouts in these bullet points below:
- Paul Foster talked about the overcapacity of incinerator supply in the UK. If all of the incinerators under development were built, we’d have 9.8 mta capacity by 2042, but with a feedstock of only 2.7mta (millions of tonnes per annum).
- Paul stated that Graythorp Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) near Hartlepool, was recently refused a permit from the Environment Agency, the first time that this has happened. This is encouraging news.
- Dave Howe, the chairman of the Eston & Normanby Club, is also a trade unionist, and he asked how many permanent jobs the TV ERF would bring. Ray Casey of North East Bylines explained that there wouldn’t be any, because existing staff would be ‘TUPE’d across from Haverton Hill.
- Local resident Gill Tarry asked Gill Turner how Medact would counter arguments from Viridor about health issues. Gill explained that incinerator developers used out of date health data. They also state that the new incinerators are cleaner than the old ones, but never provide any evidence to back this up. Gill further explained that incinerator owners don’t want to relinquish burning of plastic bottles because they need to burn these to keep up the temperature of the incinerator. Residual waste CAN be recycled, and the burning of plastic must stop.
- Fred Page of the Guisborough Eco Group confirmed that only 1 in 8 items placed in RCBC ‘blue bins’ is actually recycled. RCBC claims it is 30%, but this includes garden waste. RCBC needs to familiarize itself with the truth from top to bottom.
- Matthew Keegan of Medact said that incinerator operators are incentivized to burn waste 24/7 – councils get fined if they don’t provide a specified quantity of material to burn
- Richard Lilly, of Climate Action Durham (seen below), asked whether local authorities could be penalised for abandoning TV ERF. Paul says that, despite the scaremongering, there can be no financial penalties if contracts haven’t been signed. And contracts haven’t been signed yet, despite the misinformation. Durham County Council is one of the seven Grangetown incinerator partners. However, all of its councillors are up for re-election in May. Any Durham councillors who haven’t made their position known regarding the incinerator will need to do so soon.
Breakout
The Q and A session was followed by a ten minute breakout. I’ve listed the main ideas that emerged from this:
- We need to look at best practice from other areas – eg Bristol, a super recycling centre.
- People should contact their local councillor and ask them where they stand. If all of the councillors came out against the Grangetown incinerator, it would put pressure on the planning officers and the Regulatory Committee of RCBC
- Paul mentioned the Sherbourne Recycling Centre in Coventry – a mechanical retrieval facility. Matthew Keegan said that Sherbourne is able to sell its services to other local authorities, bringing in additional income. The Sherbourne Centre is a vision of the future beyond incineration, and its 3-minute explainer clip is worth a view.
- John McCue said that it was interesting and useful. Two things – the capacity for incineration in the north east already exceeds the amount being recycled. We need to state the case ‘against’ in simple terms
- Wales has upped its recycling rate from 30% to 60% within a decade. We can follow their example. It really isn’t rocket science.
- Matthew Keegan said give people a compost bin and they will use it
- Stephen Martin – if we can’t burn the waste, what do we do with it? Matthew told Stephen that we must reconsider the use of landfill for inert material such as plastic bottles until a way can be found to recycle them. Landfill gained a poor reputation in the past because it was frequently used for food waste. This generated CO2 and methane. But to restart landfilling on a large scale would require a complete revamp of Landfill Tax, because the current version disincentivizes this activity.
- A member of the public suggested that we should fine local authorities for burning recyclable waste.
- One third of our waste is food waste – this will disappear by the end of 2026 due to legislation that has already been passed.
So what have we learned?
Emily Parker summed up. What can people do going forward? Well, immediately, join SINE’s mailing list and Facebook page. Should we have a third meeting? No, not at this stage. We need more concrete action: submitting freedom of information requests, writing to councillors, getting information into the community.
Write to your MP
My takeaway was that the most effective action for any individual to take would be as follows: Support recycling, clean air, and the decarbonisation of our electricity supply by asking your MP to support the call for a ban on new waste incineration capacity in England. Visit: https://ukwin.eaction.org.uk/NoMoreIncinerators
Regional leadership
David Taylor suggested that perhaps SINE/Medact could invite all of the council leaders from the seven relevant local authorities to a joint meeting. That remains a possibility. David’s next suggestion was to set up WhatsApp Communities. Almost everyone agreed. However, nobody volunteered to administer these. Finally a suggestion that we should arrange for a local celebrity to attend the next meeting to attract media attention. Is Grangetown’s Chubby Brown available? Hopefully not.
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