A FIERY county council debate about the Javelin Park incinerator has ended in another defeat for Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens.

The Conservatives, who increased their dominance in the recent county council elections to claim 31 seats, voted down a proposal to halt construction of the controversial incinerator by 31 votes to 22.

GCC’s Labour leader Cllr Lesley Williams (Stonehouse), now one of just five members of her party on the council, proposed the debate with the support of new Green councillor Rachel Smith (Minchinhampton).

Her proposal comes after the £500 million contract between GCC and Urbaser Balfour Beatty was referred to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Cllr Williams wrote: “The disastrous UBB incinerator project has been plagued by mismanagement from the start of the process.

“The council notes that the contract held between UBB and the Council has been referred to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

“In light of this, the council asks that the administration halt all work on the incinerator site until the CMA has returned a judgement.

“This council should commit to an immediate independent review of the incinerator contract, specifically examining the way in which the administration has conducted itself throughout the process.

“This council also requests that a cross-party working group with involvement of the six district councils to review the management of waste throughout Gloucestershire.”

A concerted number of challengers from environment campaigners and even Stroud District Council have fought the plant’s construction every step of the way since the £500 million contract was agreed in 2013.

Many of these campaigners were present at today’s meeting at Shire Hall, gathering in the lobby area with placards and loudspeakers and making their way through to the council chamber itself.

After several of these protestors voiced their concerns during council leader Cllr Mark Hawthorne’s speech, they were calmly escorted off the premises by police officers and the meeting was temporarily paused.

These protestors, many of which are members of GlosVain and environmental enterprise group Community R4C strongly oppose the scale, cost and environmental effect of the incinerator.

Cllr Rachel Smith claimed that the incinerator was ‘profoundly anti-recycling’, she said: “Every day that construction continues increases the amount of local tax-payers money being poured into an unsustainable white elephant project.

“For as long as there is a complaint for the Competition and Markets Authority to review, the prudent thing to do is halt work on construction: and open an independent review to make sure lessons are learnt from the closed and secretive process that has led us to this point.”

A GCC blunder in January revealed many of the contract details, long kept hidden from members of the public and councillors alike, which led to allegations that the project was a ‘disincentive’ to recycling.

Efforts to keep some of these details hidden were taken to the Information Commissioner in 2015 who stated that the details should be revealed.

GCC appealed against this decision but in March an Information Tribunal ruled rejected this, leading to the authority being forced to disclose key pieces of information.

This included projected savings, pricing for gate fees, plans for unitary charges and schedules. These court battles cost the taxpayer upwards of £200,000.

Prior to today’s debate Conservative and deputy leader of GCC Cllr Ray Theodoulou, said: “This is a stunt – which Labour know will fail.

“With construction underway for months, halting work would cause massive costs.

"This project was initiated after a transparent public procurement process, which looked neutrally at every technology proposed, and has been repeatedly democratically agreed by the council.

"It is a good deal for residents - the incinerator will save taxpayers over £100m over its life, whilst protecting our environment by cutting CO2 emissions and ending our reliance on landfill."

He stated that the project had been ‘exhaustively criticised’ and now construction has been underway for eight months it must continue, stating that halting it would cost the taxpayer more and leave the energy waste project standing idle.

Several councillors who opted to speak during the debate, including Lib Dem Colin Hay, accused the Conservative administration of being arrogant during their conversations about the incinerator, unwilling to reach common ground with rival parties.

Cllr Hay said: “You have gained a majority to stop debate, the arrogance you have and lack of transparency is why there is so much distrust.”

Lib Dem councillor for Cirencester Park Joe Harris called the administration ‘feckless and incompetent’ which he felt echoed the national Conservative party’s ‘coalition of convenience’ with the Democratic Unionist Party.

The newly elected Conservative councillor for Hardwicke & Severn Stephen Davies, who also sits on Stroud District Council, spoke about his conversations about the incinerator on the campaign trail.

He stated that while he didn’t encounter anyone who liked the project, the majority told him that they wished the council should ‘just get on with it’.

Lib Dem leader on the council Cllr Paul Hodgkinson said: “This is now an old debate, but the Lib Dems have continued to oppose this plan.

“It leaves a lot to be desired, I do support an independent review, and there is a lack of full transparency here.”

Council leader Cllr Mark Hawthorne sparked outrage from the on-looking members of the public in the chamber when he said: “The idea that we can put a halt on this now speaks to the economic capacity that Corbyn spouts off on a daily basis.”

Following the intermission he continued: “A halt would come at a great cost to the taxpayer and the rise in my vote share in the election is a vote from the people of Quedgeley who want us to get on with it, this is now a dead issue.”

Lib Dem councillor for Kingsholm and Wotton Jeremy Hilton suspected that this was the end of debates on the incinerator, citing the Conservatives commanding majority on the council.

He said: “This incinerator requires twice as much waste as Gloucestershire residents produce, we could have had one half the size.

“It will be a blot on our landscape and we will have to import waste to keep the beast fed.”

Labour and Co-op councillor for Coney Hill and Matson Kate Haigh said: “Arrogance has not helped this debate.

“It is still relevant and pertinent, the incinerator is not the solution that people want, it is time to take a look at it again.”

The debate was finished off with a closing statement from Cllr Lesley Williams, she said: “People deserve to be listened to.

“It is not fair on the people we serve to treat them so shabbily.”

She said that a decision from the Conservatives to vote down the proposal would show that the party was ‘riding roughshod’ over the other parties.