For the second year in the row, May has meant a trip over to Belfast to attend and speak at the Northern Ireland Waste & Resource Management Conference, once again held at the incredible Titanic Centre. A really interesting day of speeches and conversations, and a promising address from the minister about future progress of various policies, including the tricky Rethinking Our Resources consultation that remains pending. A fantastic day, and a great chance to meet our members from across the water. Hope to see you all there the same time next year!
Back on this side of the Irish Sea, we now prepare for our first national conference of the year, with the LARAC Scotland Conference at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow on 10 June. We have a great line-up of speakers, and we hope to catch up with a good number of our Scottish members there.
On top of these national events (did I mention we’re also in Cardiff for our Welsh Conference on 7 July?), Early Bird tickets to our UK Conference in October, and applications for the LARAC Awards are also now available and can be found here.
Back in the world of policy, we have now supported two excellent regional Change Network events covering the North East, and North West and Yorkshire & Humber regions, delivered by DEFRA and DESNZ. The next event is planned for the Midlands on 23 June and all our contacts in the East and West Midlands should have received an invite – let us know if not! Events in London, South East, South West and East are to follow and we encourage all authorities to ensure they attend to allow them to have their voices heard on the changes developing!
In May, we also held our latest webinar on Digital Waste Tracking, joined by DEFRA, the Environment Agency and Suez, clarifying which local authorities, and when, will be brought within scope of the system. A popular event with a surely record-breaking number of delegate questions. If you missed it, the recording and slides are available on the website here.
So, into the summer we go, and onto the next stages of engagement. Given my footprint across the UK over May and into the summer, hopefully I will have already met a number of you in person, but for the next events – I hope to see some of you there!
