Residents in Nantwich and across Cheshire East face paying a £56 “subscription” fee to have garden waste bins collected from January, the council announced today.
Details of the proposed subscription service were unveiled as the council desperately tries to plug a £20 million funding gap in its coffers.
CEC says it has “no choice” but to bring in the subscription service which is planned to go live in January 2024.
It will be an “opt-in” service for residents who continue using their garden bin to recycle green waste.
Authority bosses it is a “significant element in the council achieving a balanced budget in 2023-25 while also protecting essential frontline services”.
But some fear many will opt out of the charge and spark to much longer queues at waste recycling centres and increased fly-tipping.
The scheme will be considered by the council’s environment and communities committee later this month.
Cllr Mick Warren, chair of Cheshire East Council’s environment and communities committee, said: “The council continues to face significant financial pressures and there is an overall £20m funding gap to fill.
“We therefore have no choice but to look to alternative sources of revenue generation.
“The collection of garden waste is not a core service that councils are required to provide – and the costs associated with it have risen considerably – but it is our wish that we continue to make this service available to residents, while also ensuring we can make required savings of around £4m.
“We can do this by introducing an annual subscription service – something which more than 65% of local authorities across England have already done including our neighbours in Cheshire West and Chester, with many of these schemes having been in place for several years.
“We do of course recognise the pressures on people’s household finances, which is why residents will only pay for the service if they opt-in to the scheme and it remains free for residents to dispose of their garden waste at our household waste recycling centres.
“We also continue to encourage residents to consider trying home composting – it is an excellent and environmentally-friendly way to limit food waste and has huge benefits to people’s gardens.”
The annual scheme is expected to open to subscriptions in October and go live in January.
Residents who opt-in will have their garden bins emptied as per their usual schedule and will be sent a specialist sticker to attach to their bin.
It will include a unique reference and is designed to fray and tear when removed to prevent them being reused by others.
More information about the scheme and details of how it will work will be added to the council’s website – cheshireeast.gov.uk/gardenbin
A report on the green waste subscription, where councillors will be asked to decide on the implementation details of the scheme, will be discussed at the council’s environment and communities committee on 27 July.
What a brilliant idea, I have often wondered why some households automatically roll the bin to the kerb, then watch the worker tip the contents into the truck to realise all that was in there was a few vegetable peelings and one bucket of lawn clippings.
Now the worker has move a bin emptied it returned it to place just for that, when bins should only be emptied when over half filled
That gormless householder has cost the rest of us now paying to have a bin emptied
Before you moan about councils, yes labour is useless, before you moan about new costs, just have a word with yourself, if your bin is only part full, leave it a week or share with a neighbour as every time a bin moves to the lorry, you paying for a workers time, don’t bloody waste it! As that’s the real answer to costs WASTED MAN HOURS
Well what a change the labour person that came to my house in may and was ask about this ,Said don’t beleave all you read but it has only taken two months to come true ,
And people are thinking of a labour goverment so what is next they can not charge for sweeping the roads they don’t how about removing weeds from gutter’s don’t do that ,
Well the CEC mob want to charge for emptying the gardening bins, after everybody already ways for the service. Now in the news the over weighted councilors want a rise in the fees they get, What two faced greedy guts they are proving to be. So where else do they want the garden waste to be put?? in the black bis? in the siver bins? or should everybody dump the garden waste onto the road sides? then they can give the bin men over time to clear away the dumped garden waste,? CEC you cannot have it all your own way, so do not have rises in fees, and do not charge extra for the brown bins to be emptied, and peace will be for everybody, how about it CEC???
joebiden
Nothing to do with Labour Council
Councils across the country are faced with tough decisions under a strained finances to provide public services, made worse by inflationary pressures. I suggest you take a look at the County Councils Network web page, which outlines the conundrum being faced and the limited options available, even in light of the Chancellor’s 2022 Autumn statement
Cllr. Brian Silvester
Nothing to do with Labour Council – stop mud slinging.
Councils across the country are faced with tough decisions under a strained finances to provide public services, made worse by inflationary pressures. I suggest you take a look at the County Councils Network web page, which outlines the conundrum being faced and the limited options available, even in light of the Chancellor’s 2022 Autumn statement
Labour run council
We already pay for the bins to be emptied!
If CE actually collected the £20 million they are owed and sold B&Q for the £20 million they paid for it then maybe we might get the services we all pay for?
I’ll be jet washing my green bin out and turning it into a cold water plunge for the many therapeutic and health benefits it offers. Maybe the council should take the plunge and exercise a clean up of some of their over paid and pointless councillors and empty offices. It’s about time the council reduce, reuse and recycle at their cost and not ours.
Waste of time I already have to clean the gutters and footpath out side my house and pay£1900
Amuses me how people who voted Labour in May are complaining about this. You were warned.
Stupid idea oap will struggle to pay and gardening is one of there pleasures also how will the food waste get picked up as this goes in the garden bin? We pay full council tax but live on a park home site o council don’t maintain our lights roads grass verges or brush up anywhere so they should subside us not the other way round. Won’t be paying thats for sure.
If they want to plug a £20m hole in the budget maybe they should stop taking their 6 figure a year salary for a while instead of wasting money to come up with a scheme that is going to cost them more in the long run since everyone will mix refuse with garden waste and/or flytip instead of paying them anything. They can come take my bin away since I won’t be using it after December.
Crewe residents face annual £56 fee for garden waste collection.
This is simply unacceptable.
Residents are being charged twice for service they are already paying for.
@CreweFirst will fight this latest rip-off from Labour run @CheshireEast.
Enough is Enough. #CheshireEast can’t be short of cash if they can afford to splash £11m+ on a multi storey car park in the centre of Crewe that nobody asked for, nobody wants and few will use.
https://thenantwichnews.co.uk/2023/07/19/nantwich-residents-face-56-fee-for-garden-waste-collections/
Not for me will just go to the tip
To achieve £4 million pounds they need 71,428 properties to sign up. We already pay via the Council Tax for this service so will those who sign up have a reduction to their annual bill? No chance with a grab grab style LA.
Watch what happens next to Car Parking charges.
You don’t seem to see any reports about cost savings eg thinning down the Senior Management Structure.
Genius idea, an epic fail given they could have said absolutely nothing at all and popped a £1 a week on the council tax where we would have had a general moan and questioned why after all is someone not checking how much of our money spent is being wasted? Even smaller companies have policies in place to scrutinise spending and yes they do find glaring holes so why not CE??
Don’t we pay taxes enough already. Also can we have our 6 figure salary Town Hall Rich List giving up their salary rises for at least 5 years, what do they actually do for such large salaries. This councils/country’s greed is growing exponentially like never before and keep expecting the public to anti up to pay for the councils/governments exorbitant salaries and bad wasteral decisions.
On a point of principle, I too will have to deposit green waste in the black bin, and/or continue to use it until they fail to empty the green bin if/when they realise it’s unpaid. Soon they will attempt to charge for the air that we breathe, while our roads develop crators and ‘services’ are not provided. It’s simply not tenable..but then, this is exactly what the people voted for in recent elections.
People will just put their green waste in the black bin.
Straight in the black bin it is then. How stupid
So, I hardly put an anything in my black bin and I don’t leave it out for collection every 2 weeks… maybe once every 6 weeks when it’s full(ish) …. Can I get a discount for not using the service? Obviously not. This new charge will do little to encourage people to recycle garden waste and I predict that fly tipping will increase dramatically. If the council didn’t waste £millions on failed IT systems and more £millions unnecessary fibre installation contracts in Stapeley… where we already have fibre, then they wouldn’t need to charge us for this….. useless idiots the lot of them
A sticker on your bin to prove you have paid,what could possibly go wrong with that?
I can only imagine the outcome of this,I hope that this fee will mean that the bins will be collected throughout the year and not pause for winter, and what happens to the food waste.
We used to pay 20. Pounds a few years ago,I think a lower price would encourage more people to participate and bring in more revenue for the council to waste.