“WE’RE between a rock and a hard place,” admitted Galashiels councillor Bill White before he and his colleagues on Scottish Borders Council unanimously agreed last week to shut the vast landfill dump at Easter Langlee in 2017.

Councillor White reflected an air of resignation in the Newtown chamber that SBC’s ambitious plans to create a state-of-the-art advance treatment plant (ATP) at the site had come to nothing after a failed procurement process which cost the council over £2m.

It also acknowledged that, at the start of 2021, the Scottish Government will impose a ban on all biodegradable waste – the bulk of which is collected weekly in black bags – going to landfill.

Mr White was, however, able to draw a positive from the saga, observing that people living in the vicinity of Easter Langlee would be “delighted” not having to endure the smell and the dust from the dump which will be capped and restored.

In its place will go a large indoor waste transfer station (WTS) on part of the site which had been earmarked for the ATT, the 2012 contract for which, with New Earth Solutions (NES), was cancelled in February this year.

And, as reported in these columns last week, the 43,000 tonnes of household and municipal waste which annually goes to landfill will then be transported to treatment facilities outwith the region.

That solution, described as “pragmatic and flexible” by head of neighbourhood services Jenni Craig, will involve the council borrowing an extra £4.5million to fully develop the WTS between 2017 and 2021.

There was an assurance from chief financial officer David Robertson that this capital spend would not impact on other projects and that, once the WTS was up and running, the new waste management system would cost SBC £5.1m a year to run – less than the £5.4m annual revenue spend which the NES deal would have involved.

Mr Robertson was also at pains to stress he believed the council would be exonerated by its auditors who were currently investigating the NES deal which, had it been delivered, would have diverted 80% of the region’s waste away from landfill.

“After carrying out due diligence we concluded the technology for the ATP was untested and the firm had been unable to finance the project,” said Mr Robertson.

“We were able to withdraw at no fault, no cost and no litigation which is unusual for a large public contract.” Councillor Catriona Bhatia (Tweeddale West) cautioned against the council gloating over this achievement.

“We should be careful not to congratulate ourselves too much on getting out of this sticky situation, for we have been around the houses with this since 2008 when the procurement process began and it has cost us a lot of money to get nowhere,” she said.

Councillor Gavin Logan (Tweeddale East) sought clarification of what councillors were told when they signed the NES deal in 2012 – thus legally varying a contract for a conventional treatment plant with the same company 18 months earlier.

“Were councillors told the technology was untested and high risk?” he asked.

Although the minute of the private meeting on October 25, 2012 has never been released, chief executive Tracey Logan assured him that all elected members had been made aware of the risk.

Councillor White asked if there would be more lorry movements at Easter Langlee when the site became a transfer station and if the council could be held to ransom by external treatment providers.

Ms Craig said there would be no net increase in lorry movements with smaller transfer stations continuing to operate in Hawick and at Eshiels near Peebles.

“There is a risk that gate fees can go up, but this will be mitigated by not tying ourselves to long term treatment contracts and using multiple providers,” she added.

Winding up the debate, Councillor Michael Cook (East Berwickshire) said: “We have all been briefed on this within an inch of our lives and the reason we don’t like making this decision is because it is hard.

“We have too critical deadlines to meet – 2017 when the current landfill cell at Easter Langlee will be full and 2021 when the landfill ban comes in.

“We need to get on with this.”