The consortium has been announced as preferred bidder for Greater Manchester’s waste disposal contract

A Laing consortium has been announced as the preferred bidder for a £300m waste disposal contract in Greater Manchester.

The joint venture comprising John Laing Infrastructure and Viridor Waste Management will deliver waste management for the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority.

The PFI contract will see Viridor/Laing provide waste reduction, recycling, composting, treatment, recovery and disposal.

Viridor/Laing’s proposals include the provision, redevelopment, refurbishment, operation and maintenance of a number of essential facilities.

These include materials recycling facilities, mechanical/biological treatment and in-vessel composting plants, a new and existing thermal recovery facility, transfer loading stations and household waste recycling centres. The consortium will also provide landfill disposal capacity for treated residues.

The contract is expected to be finalised in May 2007.

Alan Hogg, John Laing Infrastructure Director commented: “This shows that the partnership between Viridor and Laing is working successfully and we are pleased to see that there is an important role for private investment in the waste sector.”

The project will see green technology company TEG build four composting plants as qa subcontractor on the project. These plants will have a combined capacity of 180,000 tonnes of waste each year and will produce 125,000 of compost every year.

Each of the four plants will process green and kitchen waste from homes across Greater Manchester and the contract is the largest waste management project in Europe to date. Over £300m is to be invested in the project and the overall contract value is around £3bn.