SCOTTISH Borders Council has put a £4m price tag on the new waste transfer station (WTS) which will replace the region’s main municipal dump at Easter Langlee.

That is the estimated total value – exclusive of VAT– of a facility which is expected to be up and running by May 2018 – three months before the landfill capacity of a site which has operated since the 1970s is exhausted.

The council has taken to the Public Contracts Scotland website to elicit expressions of interest from construction firms.
The new development will include the provision of a waste transfer block, administration building and operational yard as well as entrance and exit roads.

Potential bidders, who will also be expected to undertake “careful remediation” of the Easter Langlee site, have until January 21 to express an interest.

Selected firms will be formally invited to tender by February 14, by which time the council’s planning application for the change of use will have been considered by SBC’s own planning committee.

The switch from waste treatment (landfill) to waste transfer, agreed by the council in August last year, has been driven by the Scottish Government’s impending 2021 ban on all biodegradable waste going to landfill.

And it was a decision informed by the costly collapse in February last year of a contract between the council and New Earth Solutions (NES) for a £21m advanced thermal treatment (ATT) plant at Easter Langlee.

The demise of that deal forced the council to write off the £2.4m it had already spent on the abortive procurement process.

When the WTS is operational, the 43,000 tonnes of household and commercial waste currently landfilled at Easter Langlee will be transported outwith the region for treatment.

The annual cost to the council of running the new facility is estimated at over £5m.