Localism does not mean NIMBY-ism

There are three principal inflationary cost pressures bearing down on all-purpose and county councils, namely, looked-after children, adult care and looming EU landfill taxes.
In an age of austerity, when the public must take a role in prioritising the services they want, it still remains difficult to give them the option of cutting children’s and adult services.
However, the third cost pressure, landfill taxes, is another matter. Quite simply, residents should be asked two questions – do they believe dumping rubbish in the ground at ever-rising cost and then having their council be fined for missing EU targets is a sensible way of spending taxpayers’ money? If not, will they accept the building of energy-from-waste plants in their locality to burn the rubbish instead of landfilling it?
The chief executive of waste company, Sita, believes a ‘time bomb’ is ticking over the current situation in which only 50% of applications for waste-to-energy facilities are approved (see story, page 3). Residents dislike the idea of incinerators in their neighbourhoods, even though countries such as Denmark and Sweden have been using them for years. Councils turn down the applications in response, thereby merely postponing the problem. The scrapping of the Infrastructure Commission removes any strategic approach to waste disposal policy, leaving it exposed to the localised lobbying power of residents.
The issue is not merely about waste or energy, important as they are. It is about the public taking responsibility for the consequences of their own actions. Localism cannot only be about the devolution of power to small groups of residents to exploit for their own advantage. Localism is the very opposite of NIMBY-ism. To use the cliché, with power must come responsibility.
The days of the public passively receiving services from an all-pervasive local authority are over. They are now part of local governance, in some cases, under Big Society, even set to assume services previously operated by the council. And when it comes to strategic decisions, including reducing landfill and avoiding swingeing charges, the public can no longer ostrich-like hide their heads in the sand and avoid participating in the difficult decisions.
Michael Burton, Editor, The MJ