Council will not pull out of £2 billion incinerator project

NEWCASTLE'S council leadership has rejected calls to pull out of a £2 billion waste incinerator project.

- DANIEL HOLLAND

City councillors voted earlier this month in favour of exiting a contract for the Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility (TVERF), a massive rubbish burner that is set to be built near Redcar. But Newcastle City Council's Labour cabinet has confirmed it will not do so, in spite of the full council's backing for a Lib Dem motion urging leaders to withdraw.

Labour council leader Karen Kilgour told a cabinet meeting on Monday that pulling out now would risk exposing the authority to financial penalties.

Andrew Husband, the Reform UK leader of Durham County Council, also called on his Newcastle counterparts to pull out of the TVERF last week, saying his administration had "no appetite" for the project. Newcastle, Durham, Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and Stockton are the seven councils involved in the incinerator project, with Viridor the chosen operator.