Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies were received from Matt O’Neill.

No were no declarations of interest.

Resolved:- That the minutes of the meeting held on 24 June 2025, be approved as a true and correct record of the proceedings.

The Senior Contract Officer provided an update relating to the BDR Managers Report, during which the following was discussed and noted:

• There was a maintenance review conducted externally. This was conducted for two main reasons, the first being that the contract was ten years in so would be used to ensure that the contractor would be fulfilling their requirements to properly maintain the facility and equipment and the second was to ensure monitoring throughout the contract lifespan using this as a baseline going forward. No red flags or significant concerns were raised via the report and the main areas for improvement were minor, an example being that the data was not in the best format when provided and would be improved going forward.
• In relation to performance on site, there was no issues to raise relating to targets.
• There was an increase in complaints in August which related specifically to odour, all complaints were responded to via the contractor and many complaints were unfounded or unsubstantiated due to the distances involved. All complaints were fully investigated by the contractor and data provided to the  Environment Agency when the complaints originated from them.There was a robust plan in place to keep complaints to a minimum, whilst ensuring that all complaints were be investigated properly.
• The last Liaison Committee Meeting was held in May, during which it was agreed that a Strategy Day would be held with the contractor instigating this, with all Council’s being invited to attend. The intention was to hold the Strategy Day before the next BDR Committee meeting in November 2025.
• There was a recent fire at Barnsley Transfer Station, this was most likely caused by a vape or battery mixed in with waste mattresses that were loaded into the trailer stored outside the main building.  Following the major fire at the Barnsley Transfer Station the previous year, this external storage was one of the changes made and as a result this fire was contained to just the trailer. This highlighted that the processes put in place following the fire last year, such as increased thermal imaging, CCTV and 24-hour monitoring had worked. The fire brigade attended the fire within twenty-five minutes.

The Chair thanked the relevant officer for the update and invited members present to ask any questions on this item, during which the following was discussed and noted:

• Councillor Marshall asked whether it would be possible for the previous year’s figures to be included in future reports, to provide members with the opportunity to compare the previous and current year’s figures. The Senior Contract Officer present advised that this could be done, however when the contract changed over to Biffa from Renewi, the monitoring system changed, therefore the categories had changed, and members were asked to bear this in mind when comparing previous and current figures moving forwards.

-       Update on contractor

-       Parent Company Guarantee Rejection

Consideration was given to the report, which was included within the agenda pack, during which the following was discussed and noted:

• The sale to Biffa took place at the end of 2024, since the sale it was business as usual with no major changes to report. 
• The reason for the purchase offer of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), was to provide Biffa with PFI experience for any future PFI’s.
• It was noted that the BDR project was well managed and provided a good evidence base for further PFI’s.
• There were no future major changes to the contract or to the site planned and the contract was running well at present. Any potential arising issues would be reported back into the Board at a future meeting.

The Chair invited members present to ask any questions on this item and the update received, there were no questions asked.

The risk register was recently presented to the Steering Group for a deep dive relating to risks. There were no new risks added and no further changes to report.

The Chair invited members present to ask any questions on this item and the update received, there were no questions asked.

A representative of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) who was also the audit transactor for the project, was present at the meeting and advised the following:

• The contact operated well and there was support provided to the Senior Contract Officer, via networking groups for PFI Contract Managers.
• The representative from Defra was engaging with officials regarding the training scheme and the impact on waste facilities.
• The officer present would be on sabbatical for four months and the role would be completed in the interim by another experienced transactor.

Tuesday 3 February 2026 at 2.00pm in Rotherham Town Hall.

Resolved: - The next meeting of the Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham Joint Waste Board will be held on Tuesday 3 February 2026, commencing at 2.00 p.m. in Rotherham Town Hall.