Hull waste firm picks up £30m for Cheshire East contract

Cheshire East Council has awarded a multi-million pound organic waste treatment contract to Yorkshire firm Biowise.

As part of the £30m deal, Hull-headquartered Biowise will build, finance and run a £7m composting centre in Leighton Grange, near Crewe for a minimum of 15 years.

The plant will use technology created by Gicom Composting Systems to process up to 75k tonnes of food and garden waste annually.

Around 40% will be turned into compost for use in the horticultural, agricultural, landscaping or land remediation sectors. The rest will either be re-processed, recycled or sent for energy and heat recovery.

James Landau, managing director of Biowise, which trades under the Wastewise brand, said: “We are delighted to be working with Cheshire East Council on this new waste treatment project which will provide a proven solution for the treatment of organic waste as well as a quality end product.”

Cheshire East Council Cabinet Member for Environment, Cllr Don Stockton, commented: “Biowise put forward a proposal that not only fulfilled all our strategic, operational and financial requirements, but assists us in making recycling as simple as possible for residents, with additional beneficial outcomes for the community and minimal disruption to service.”

Gicom MD Monique Groenenboom said: “We have a great relationship with Biowise and are very happy to be partnering with them on this project and in the development of further opportunities in the UK.”

To assist with the build of the new facility, Biowise secured a seven-figure funding package from Yorkshire Bank.

Yorkshire Bank’s corporate and structured finance director, Pete Sumners, commented: “The development of this state-of- the-art facility is extremely encouraging for Biowise and we are delighted to support this important project.”

The Leighton Grange facility is due to be operational in Summer 2019. It represents Biowise’s first local authority contract outside its Yorkshire heartland and North Lincolnshire.

Image: L-R: Ralph Kemp (Cheshire East), James Landau (Biowise), Don Stockton (Cheshire East) and Bob Wilkes (Biowise)

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