Fortnightly bin collections will start in January (From Craven Herald)

Fortnightly bin collections will start in January

2:20pm Friday 21st August 2009 in

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Controversial plans to introduce fortnightly general waste collection in Craven were rubber-stamped at the district council’s full meeting on Tuesday – with a target start date of early next year.

The plans had been brought forward from last week’s policy committee meeting when a majority vote favoured the idea.

At full council, members heard impassioned pleas from the public and some of the councillors, who said many residents wanted to keep the current weekly service.

Margaret Nicholson, a former councillor from Glusburn, asked members to listen to the electorate.

“It is important councillors listen to what Craven people are asking. They don’t want alternative collections,” she said.

If members were determined to go ahead with the plans, there should be a pilot scheme first to iron out problems, she added.

“Get the people on your side. Reading between the lines you are doing it to save money. It seems that money is God here, not the service,” she said.

Her husband, Glusburn Parish Council chairman Roger Nicholson, said that to force people to recycle in this way was insulting.

“The people’s view of this council is extremely low,” he said. “This proposal will be seen as threatening and counter-productive. Is it the stick or the carrot that gets the best results in the long term?”

Tim Foreman, of Hothfield Terrace, Skipton, said his neighbours recycled as a community, but they would not have room for larger bins and would have to arrange their own collection on the weeks the council did not collect.

“I don’t think the issue is green. I think it is financial. Don’t railroad through what is an unpopular measure,” he said.

Council leader Coun Chris Knowles-Fitton (Cons) urged members to approve the recommendations.

They would enable the council to meet Government targets for recycling – from the current rate of 35.8 per cent to 40 per cent by next year, 45 per cent by 2013 and 50 per cent by 2020, he said.

“We have a moral and social responsibility to preserve our precious land from landfill in the future and we need to improve recycling arrangements. Moving to alternate weekly collections lets us achieve both objectives,” he said.

After a query whether a January start date was too soon, Coun Knowles-Fitton said: “There is no reason to hold back. Change is necessary and inevitable. We must concentrate the minds with plans that are thought through so that when the new system goes live, it works.

“The chief executive has managed this very process in his previous authority – Oswestry Borough Council – and I believe it was very successful. He tells me that an implementation date for January is not unreasonable. It is up to the chief executive and his team to make sure it works. His reputation is on the line and up to now he has not let me down.”

During the debate, several councillors made renewed efforts to reject fortnightly collections. “Our weekly collection service is excellent. It’s one of the best things we do,” said Coun Paul English (Lib Dem).

“I don’t see fortnightly collections working, especially in my ward in Skipton West. There are some big families there in small houses who will be most affected.

“You say that these families will be able to have a larger bin or an extra bin to cope with extra waste. But giving someone two bins and collecting them every two weeks, instead of one bin each week – I can’t see the point.”

Members in favour of a pilot scheme included Coun Philip Barrett (Ind). He said the council’s reputation would suffer if it went wrong and asked for a trial run.

He said the projected savings could not be measured properly because the market for recycled materials was too volatile.

“Members will remember that just a few months ago we couldn’t give it away,” he said.

The committee was told that the move would save money as well as increase recycling habits and the council needed to do both.

Some of the money saved would be reinvested into extending kerbside recycling facilities.

Susan Goodall, interim strategic director of corporate services, told members: “This council is in a very difficult financial situation. The situation is serious. We are in a potential negative balance situation as a result of an excess call on balances last year.”

She said the council was conducting a major budget monitoring exercise and putting a lot of pressure on staff. A report was due to be produced before September 2.

“I am putting pressure on officers right across the board to itemise and scrutinise on everything they are spending,” she said. “We have to look at reserves as a council to bring us back into a balance.”

Some councillors had asked for the system to stay as it was and look at ways to step up recycling as a matter of course, but Mrs Goodall said this was not an option.

“If we take a decision other than two-weekly collections alongside recycling, we will be making an illegal decision because you are spending money that is not there,” she said.

A vote for a trial scheme to be implemented in part of Craven before making any permanent decision resulted in a tie, with council chairman Coun David Crawford (Cons) using his casting vote against the amendment.

Instead, an agreement was reached that fortnightly waste collection would be brought in with a target date of January 18 to allow some flexibility for teething problems.