Charging for green waste bin collections across Cheshire East could rake in up to £4 million a year, writes Belinda Ryan.
The proposal to charge residents to empty their green waste (brown) bins is one of the measures councillors will be considering at Thursday’s meeting of the environment and communities committee.
Councillors will be debating the mid-term financial strategy 2023-7 (budget).
It comes as the council is facing a £20 million funding gap for 2023/4 and has to find savings and/or increase income across all its services.
According to the MTFS document, which has just been out for public consultation, introducing subscription charging for green waste collections, subject to consultation with residents, would align Cheshire East to most other local authorities in charging for kerbside collection and disposal of green waste.
The report states: “Average charges compared to neighbouring boroughs could raise as much as £4.05m per annum.”
Cheshire East acknowledges there could be implications for food waste recycling as this is currently collected with garden waste.
“Changes following consultation would also require significant communication and engagement with residents,” states the report.
“Changes could require food waste to be placed in black bins.
“Any proposal may be subject to review if government guidance is amended in relation to waste collection services.”
Cheshire East is expecting to have to pay out nearly £4m more than it had previously forecast for its waste collection services in the next financial year just to ensure it can keep up its current fortnightly collections for all types of bins.
It says the costs are forecast to be higher due to increased waste tonnages driven by changing behaviours following the pandemic and an increase in demand from new housing.
“This results in increased vehicles and crews and increased fuel usage,” states the report. “In addition, a statutory change in fuel duty applied from April 2022.”
The committee cannot make any decisions at Thursday’s meeting.
Instead it can provide feedback on the proposals suggested and this then goes to the corporate policy committee, which meets of February 9, before a final decision is taken on the budget proposals at full council on February 22.
We only put our black bin out every 4 to 6 weeks and then it’s not full.
The articles states that CEC is facing a funding gap of £20m….. yet another Nantwich News article states that they have failed to collect £20m in council tax. The maths can’t be any more basic than that…. Even for CEC to work out!
Unbelievable and absurd to charge council tax payers for collection of green waste bins. Indeed there will be more fly tipping. Many a time my ‘recycle bin’ has been left uncollected and stupidly once I contacted Cheshire East Council, to have an uncollected bin collected and I was informed to leave it outside my property. Low and behold, it stayed there for a fortnight until the next collection date, when it was collected.
We do pay for it already, it called council tax!
I guess it’s so all the councillors can have another free lunch at their meeting to decided how to rip us off a bit more?
New build houses pay rates? So any new builds should be self funding? How does post pandemic affect green waste – have gardens mutated and doubled in size?
CEC is mistaken. it will cost more to clean up the fly tipping/litter, and people will put the waste in their black bin. What is not in the bin will be burnt, at everyone’s air quality downfall. Its a bad suggestion to charge, and we are already paying for it. Hits the people with no garden and car hardest. Is ok if you have the money, and an extra tax at a bad time. My bins are sometimes nearly empty depending on the time of year, so a better collecting regime may work. The lorry and operators still come even if I put no bins out. New homes should be taxed at the rate that makes it sustainable to collect waste, and maybe those homes need higher banding as they were NOT sustainably built you suggest. They do pay council tax so why the need for more?
CEC charging for green bin collection? I didn’t realise they were currently doing it for free!
If they bring in this charge I’ll probably just make regular bonfires rather than pay it.
More demand from new housing, is this such a shock to our inept council, they our allowing the building of all these new developments in the local area,oh wait a minute are the same houses not all paying council tax.
I think that this must surely be generating more revenue for the council so I don’t understand how this putting more pressure on the waste system.
It’s simple ,more houses equals more waste but also more revenue from tax,no wonder we are in such a mess
If we’re all recycling etc just don’t empty the black bins as often surly that would save a bit, my black bin hardly has anything in it these days, my recycling bin is always full, just keep the garden/food waste as it is