Cheshire’s Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy
Cheshire’s Joint Municipal Waste Management
Strategy sets out how Cheshire’s local
authorities intend to reduce, recycle, recover and dispose of
Cheshire’s municipal waste between 2007 and 2020.
The current Joint
Municipal Waste Management Strategy 2007 – 2020 (PDF
212kb) is set out in a Headline Strategy Document
and is supported by other key technical documents including
Background
Cheshire’s first Joint Household Waste
Management Strategy was agreed in 2002 by the Cheshire Waste
Partnership which comprised of the former County and District
Councils. The Strategy was developed following two extensive
public consultation exercises. A copy of the Joint Household
Waste Management Strategy 2002 can be downloaded here. A
further public consultation on the need for energy from waste was
undertaken in 2004. Following the results of this
consultation, the Cheshire Waste Partnership agreed new targets for
recycling and minimisation and a preferred approach to treatment of
residual waste.
In 2007 the Cheshire Waste Partnership
consolidated the original Strategy documentation to ensure
that the Strategy fully reflects the extent of work undertaken by
the Partnership since 2002 and that it complies with the
Government ‘s revised guidance on the format required for local
authority Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategies.
The resulting Joint Municipal Waste Management
Strategy documents were approved by all the Cheshire Waste
Partnership authorities in 2008. The core approach of the
Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy remains unchanged from
the 2002 Strategy.
Strategic Environmental Assessment
In parallel to the re-formatting of the
Strategy, the Cheshire Waste Partnership took the opportunity to
conduct a Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Strategy
(SEA). A Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a
method of assessing environmental, health and sustainability
impacts of a Strategy.
The process used a range of agreed
environmental criteria to assess the impacts of the Joint Municipal
Waste Management Strategy objectives and the key options for
recycling and for waste treatment. The Cheshire Waste
Partnership appointed Enviros Ltd to undertake the SEA. The
results are set out in the SEA Environmental Report and its
Non-technical Summary.
Consultations on the SEA
Stage 1. An ‘SEA
Scoping Report’ (PDF 1607kb) was prepared. This set
out the proposed scope of the SEA including the key assessment
criteria and the Strategy options which would be assessed.
Stage 2. This scoping report was
consulted upon over a five week with statutory consultees (Natural
England, English Heritage and the Environment Agency). Responses
from the consultation were used to refine the scope of the
SEA.
Stage 3. Enviros Ltd then undertook a
full assessment of the Strategy objectives and options.
This is reported in the SEA
Environmental Report (PDF 1176kb).
Stage 4. In line with the requirements of the
SEA legislation, this full assessment was then made available for
public comment via a public consultation exercise. The
consultation period ran from November 2007 to February 2008
An SEA
Consultation Report (PDF 66kb), which summarises the
consultation responses, was presented to members of the Local
Government Association Waste Task Group which oversees the Cheshire
Waste Partnership. The responses were taken into account in the
final approved Strategy documents.