Green Councillor Julien Pritchard, alongside Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors, was successful in challenging the Labour Council Cabinet’s decision to keep the incinerator going for another 10 years.
The Council’s Sustainability and Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee upheld the requests for ‘call in’ from Green Party as well as Liberal Democrat and Conservative Party councillors.
The decision has now been sent back to the Council Cabinet for them to think again.
Councillor Julien Pritchard said:
“Keeping the incinerator going for another 10 years completely flies in the face of the City Council’s climate change declaration to be net zero by 2030.
“The Labour administration claimed there are no alternatives to their climate-trashing plan, but that’s because, despite running the Council for over 11 years, they’ve not seriously looked at alternatives to burning Brum’s waste.
“There are greener ways of dealing with most of what the Council decides to burn in the incinerator. Improving the city’s shameful recycling rates, increasing the number of different materials the Council recycles, and most importantly introducing a food waste collection, could drastically cut the amount of waste the City Council burns.
“But the Labour Cabinet ignored all of this in coming to their decision. Birmingham deserves better, bolder leadership on climate and a better deal for residents.
“So it’s heartening to see the scrutiny committee agree that the Cabinet’s decision was flawed and uphold our requests. I was pleased to have been able to play my part in challenging this decision.
“Hopefully the scrutiny committee’s decision to call this in makes the Labour administration think twice, and we get a better deal for residents, for Birmingham, and the planet.”