Money to burn

Feb 3 2011 Buckinghamshire Advertiser

THE debate about whether the county really needs to spend millions on an incinerator has been blown wide open with the revelation that it will cost taxpayers in the region of £200million.

This has led the opposition Liberal Democrat group on Tory-controlled Buckinghamshire County Council to come off the fence and declare outrage at being asked to approve budget cuts of £58m at the same time as taking £34m out of the revenue budget to save as a down payment on an incinerator.

If it is difficult for councillors, who have been attending meetings on this topic since it was first mooted three years ago, to know which is the best and most cost-effective way of disposing our waste, how much more difficult is it for the rest of us to know. Even more so when much of the discussion is in private session.

We do not know whether council leader David Shakespeare meant to reveal the £200m figure - it clearly came as a shock to others in the cabinet - but if it opens up a debate, then it must be a good thing that he did.