Newcastle Labour

Newcastle’s Liberal run Executive has long claimed to be against incineration – but now incineration will be left open to deal with the city’s rubbish in the short term. The decision was made on Wednesday at the Council’s Executive, where members decided which technologies to pursue to deal with the cities rubbish.

Liberals in Newcastle agreed to pursue incineration as a technology to treat the cities rubbish – even though Liberal policy in the city is supposedly against incineration. A cross party watchdog, the Environment Scrutiny Panel, has already called on the Executive to rule out incineration within or outside the city limits based on environmental evidence and public opinion, which was dead set against the move when looked into through the cities waste consultation.

Cllr Henri Murison, Labour Environment spokesperson said:

“We are opposed to the incineration of Newcastle’s waste, full-stop. After what happened in Byker with the incinerator there, Newcastle Labour took a strong clear stand that the city’s rubbish should never again be dealt with in this way, The Liberals have always said they agreed with us, and now they have done a U-Turn. We have won on getting them to rule it out incineration for the city in the long term, which till tonight they wouldn’t even do. This has been a great victory for the No to Incineration in Newcastle campaign, but we now need to stop it being used on a temporary basis as well.”

Labour Leader in Newcastle, Nick Forbes, said:

“The city needs to be consistent about what its environmental principles are. Incineration is one of the least green ways to treat residual waste – if it is not environmentally acceptable enough to incinerate waste in the long term, the council should not spend tax payer’s money incinerating it in the coming years. The Liberals’ green credentials are going up in smoke.”