Grand Hotel demolition - "No comment"

But he has given a detailed response to a second question via his Ask The Leader slot on the www.rother.gov.uk website about weekly waste food collection.

The questioner said: "Two unrelated questions if I may.

"Firstly, like many residents in this locality I am waiting with bated breath for the JCBs etc to arrive before the enforcement date in just ten days time.

"Are you getting excited too?

"Secondly, what is Rother's response to today's media reports from WRAP suggesting food waste be collected WEEKLY!?"

The leader said: "Firstly, I have no comments about the Grand. The site will be inspected after the compliance date and the matter referred to legal services to commence prosecution if the Notice is not complied with.

"In response to your second question, WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme: an organisation set up by the Government to encourage and enable businesses and consumers to be more efficient in their use of materials and recycle more things more often) has recently looked at the progress of recycling within the UK and particularly the issue of Alternate Weekly Collections (AWC).

"It has identified the significant environmental benefits of recycling and commented that waste strategies across UK now all envisage further significant increases in recycling.

"This also applies across the commercial and private sectors, although the impact on domestic collections has drawn most comment.

"Over 180 local authorities use AWC, a generic term that covers diverse arrangements for collection of separated recyclable or compostable materials and residual waste for incineration or landfill. There are local variations in AWC schemes according to the facilities and market opportunities to which waste collection and waste disposal authorities have access and can therefore feed into.

"Mainly, these facilities are provided by private sector, specialist contractors and a local authority will try to design its AWC schemes around those facilities to which it can access.

"The WRAP guidance, to which the press has been referring, suggests that where concerns about the increased risk of odour, flies and other nuisances might exist, a local authority should provide secure, rigid storage and offer simple, practical advice about wrapping and bagging wastes to reduce these risks. These aspects, along with many other points raised in the guidance, were addressed within the Rother scheme. It goes on to identify that much of the debate on AWC has focussed on public concern about storage of food waste. However, it states that to meet the Landfill Directive requirements it will be necessary to deal with food waste in the residual waste stream. Its research indicates that the best environmental way to achieve this is to collect food waste separately and weekly and to process it either as compost, or preferably through processes such as anaerobic digestion that allow energy recovery. It suggests that any authority now considering a change to AWC should take the opportunity of introducing separate food collections alongside AWC. It does not make reference to any retrospective introduction of food waste collections.

"The council will be introducing collections of green garden waste, but that stream cannot take kitchen wastes. This is prevented by the Animal By Products Order, 1999 that identifies the possibility of cross contamination of food wastes from the kitchen with infectious agents. At the present time, there are no commercial facilities within the disposal area for anaerobic digestion, although the waste disposal company contracted with the county council is currently planning a facility to commence operation late 2009.

"In the interim period the council will investigate how it could collect kitchen wastes to feed into this facility."