Introduction

The purpose of the North London Waste Plan (NLWP), which is being developed jointly by seven North London boroughs (Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest), is to ensure that there is sufficient capacity to manage the processing of household and other waste during the period up to 2027 without exporting a large proportion of it to landfill sites in other parts of the country, as currently happens.

Drafting of the NLWP was originally completed in 2012 and the completed draft was greeted with fierce opposition from a number of groups representing communities in North London, in particular by the Pinkham Way Alliance, which was set up originally to resist plans to build a large reprocessing plant on the Pinkham Way section of the North Circular Road in New Southgate.  The focus of the Alliance's campaign was subsequently broadened when it became clear that in addition to the threat to this particular area of undeveloped land the NLWP posed a threat to the economic well being of the North London boroughs because of the inflexible nature of the contracts envisaged with private companies.

Later in 2012 there were two significant developments:  the apparent abandonment of the main element of the proposed Pinkham Way scheme, and a ruling by the Planning Inspectorate that the NLWP as originally drafted was not legally compliant and that the planning and consultation process must therefore be relaunched.

For more detail see the Pinkham Way Alliance and North London Waste Plan websites.  See also the Pinkham Way section of this website.

[This introduction was last updated on 19 May 2013 and is in need to revision and updating to reflect later events.]

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