Cllr Judith Guthrie
TOWN Hall chiefs at Warrington look set to introduce an annual charge for emptying green bins.
Members of the borough council’s executive board will be recommended next week to introduce a £30 charge for the service – currently provided free – if the payment is made online.
There will be a £33 charge if the payment is not made online, to cover administration costs.
The council currently empties 79,000 green bins, compared to 89,000 blue bins and 90,430 black bins.
A report to the executive board to be presented by Cllr Judith Guthrie, lead member for environment and public protection, indicates, based on an assumption there will be a 35 per cent take up of the service, the council will require 4.9 garden waste collection vehicles compared with 6.3 per cent at present. The service currently costs £942,000 a year.
The report indicates that the council has no legal obligation to provide a free collection service for garden waste. Many council’s already charge.
At neighbouring Halton, where charging was introduced some time ago, there has been a 36 per cent use of the service. There has also been an increase in incidents of fly-tipping of garden waste from 27 to 40 a year. But there was also an increase in general waste fly-tipping over the same period and council chiefs say it is not possible to attribute the increase to the introduction of charges. There was very little adverse comment made about the change.
Take-up of the garden waste collection service at authorities across the country, where charging has been introduced varies from 25-to-50 per cent.
If approved, the charges will start from March 2017 and leaflets explaining the changes and the reasons for them – the council’s ongoing need to reduce spending – will be distributed to residents.
Householders who decide to pay for the service will be issued with stickers to put on their bins. But there will be no reduction in charge if the householders forgets to put their bin out.
The report points out that at present collection of garden waste is paid for by all council tax payers – including those who do not have gardens.
17 Comments
So much for the council’s commitment to recycling and the environment!
Exactly and with regards to people not having gardens what about houses that do not have grass verges outside or trees in the street or personal parking on public highways. We all pay a tax is what the Council have said repeatedly and not charges for services.
The council are building thousands of houses and flats and all pay council tax but we are getting less and less for what we pay. The council keep saying we have no money WHY.
What exactly does out ever increasing council tax now cover?!
Do not dare charge me. I will issue proceedings immediately. Unless you confirm you are reducing rates by the same amount for non-use of the receptacle? Disgraceful!
A spectacular own goal! If the council had introduced it as an optional extra fee service in the first place it would have been generating revenue for years and not caused a storm of protest.
Re people who don’t have gardens, presumably they will be in lower council tax bands?
Apparently they empty 79,000 green bins per year costing £942,000 a year. So why are they wanting to charge £30 when it’s costing them £12? WBC will make a Profit of more than 1.3million!! 🤔
Simple take your blue bins and green bins back and lets go back to us all putting everything in the black bin You will save loads of money on lorries staff etc and then revert to moaning about landfills !!!!!!!!!! What a joke
I hope that they will arrange to collect all unwanted green bins and take them away. They can have mine whenever they are ready !!
I can’t remember the last time I used my green bin, so it is ready for collection anytime the council want it.
Is the council going to collect all the leaves that fill our gardens from THEIR trees. We put them in the green bins at the moment. DO we now brush them onto the streets because they are not ours.
I could live with the “own goal” as Gary puts it, were it not for the unnecessary new council offices (cost unknown and most certainly undisclosed for years to come). The argument that the undisclosed cost comes out of the capital expenditure budget and therefore has little or no impact on “austerity savings” is unconvincing. As a commercial, as opposed to LA enterprise, the new office could be attracting more revenue than will be the case when WBC set up shop in it.
I refuse to pay for the same service twice I’ll revert to using the black bin What a joke this Council are increased costs every year since they gained control and reduced services
Ian Lymm
Will the colections then be an all round yearly service ????
As it is they only collect for 9 months anyway …………..
I didn’t vote for this, why don’t you cut back on counsellers expenses and other wasted monies before you start charging us for recycling!!
If no collection of green binI will submit a bill for storage