More than 11,300 households in Cheshire East have so far signed up to the council’s subscription scheme to have their garden waste bins emptied from next year, writes Belinda Ryan.
Of those, 9,500 have already paid the annual £56 charge, which has boosted the council’s coffers by £532,000.
Cllr Mick Warren (Ind), chair of the environment and communities committee, said he was pleased with the take-up.
“So far 11,387 people have subscribed to the scheme, which is encouraging because it has only been open a couple of weeks,” he said.
Cheshire East is hoping to rake in up to £4 million a year by charging for garden waste collection.
People who don’t sign up will not have their garden bins emptied from January.
But many councillors and residents are not happy with the scheme – especially as the charge is higher than other nearby authorities.
Cheshire West & Chester charges £40; Warrington charges £43 – although that drops to £39 if residents subscribe online; Halton is £35 and Newcastle-under-Lyme £38.50.
Stoke-on-Trent only charges for garden waste collection through the winter and that costs £15. It is free during the summer.
Cllr Patrick Redstone (Odd Rode, Con) asked why a monthly service was not offered at a lower rate.
No one at the meeting was able to respond to the question and he was told he would receive a written reply.
This week the council has emailed a response to councillors saying: “The authority has chosen to introduce the charge on existing bi-weekly collection frequencies to minimise disruption to collection rounds and customer collection days.
“This also ensures the service has been able to be introduced in a timely manner to meet the agreed MTFS budget requirements.
“We are unable to offer a varied collection frequency service to different households, such as a monthly option, due to the complexity this would add to the service collection administration.
“The vehicles travel a set route to ensure efficiency of the whole collection round, passing properties irrespective of how frequently the bin is presented.”
I am amazed that so many have been able to negotiate the labyrinthine system for ” signing up “. I have just spent 40 minutes trying to sign on, answering questions one after the other that could only have been concocted by a bored bureaucrat or an IT department with ants in their pants. User friendly it is not. I have given up after reaching an impasse with the payment method.
As one contributor said, there is no rush to do this.
I was thinking of paving and decking. Not environmentally friendly, I know, but it will save a lot of messing – and garden refuse!
Here is the thing, if these residents had not bothered to act so fast and pay in full for a service that will not start till next year, and just who does the garden in January anyway?? Clearly the first load would be around Easter time, then the council would have had to back down due to nobody taking up their kind offer, so thankyou all the muppets that raced to pay, maybe next time we are asked to pay extras they with stay silent and avoid encouraging them
There’s going to be a lot of compost piles appearing near you soon!
they (Cheshire East Council) should not be encouraged by the “take up”. We were left with no option but to pay twice. Once via council tax and once again by the bin charge.
that genius, now one bin on my street we all will share then drive off for another street with a couple of bins to collect, those workers will drive the same distance but can pretty much put their feet up for most of the day, which 5 yrs old came up with this cost saver??
I am sure they will invest all your hard earned money wisely, but let’s be honest probably not,should help fund the new CEO,
Glad I have not contributed to this shameful council