“Defra did not start work on building a new waste treatment infrastructure until 2003.  As a result, only two new waste PFI projects developed since the Directive have been completed and the 2013 target now looks a very tricky proposition.” 

Mr Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, was speaking as the National Audit Office published its report into Defra’s delivery of the waste PFI programme.  The report finds that Defra was initially too slow to respond to the 1999 EU Directive setting Member States a timescale for reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill, with only two new PFI waste facilities having being completed since the Directive came into force.  If the 2013 target to reduce landfill waste in England is missed because of delays to new waste PFI projects coming online, the resulting EU fines could run into several hundred millions of pounds.