Agenda item

The following petition containing in excess of 1,500 signatures, which is the threshold to trigger a debate at Council, was submitted at the Council meeting held on 16 February 2023 by Councillor Norman Jorgensen:

‘For 20 years, Wokingham Borough Council maintained a policy of having bins collected every week. Careful management of the Council’s money made this possible, even when other local authorities, strapped for cash, went to fortnightly, or even three-weekly collections.

Collecting bins every week is important.

It means that families, especially with small children, aren’t stuck with nappies and other non-recyclable waste. A lot of homes in the borough have nowhere to store waste and no external access to back gardens, leading to rubbish piling up in the streets and creating a public health issue.

The new Liberal Democrat led coalition administration running Wokingham Borough Council won’t commit to keeping weekly bin collection.

We challenged them to give a guarantee, and instead, they hide behind having a consultation. When asked if they would keep weekly bin collection, if local people said that’s what they wanted, Wokingham’s Coalition Administration refused to make that promise.

Please complete the Council’s consultation and explain why changing to 2 to 3 weekly collections is not acceptable.

If you want Wokingham Borough Council to carry on collecting your bins every week, please support our campaign.

Sign this petition and send a message that the Lib Dem-led coalition cannot ignore.

Keep WBC Weekly Bin Collections.’

Councillor Norman Jorgensen as the petition organiser has submitted the following Motion:

‘This Motion is a result of 1,800 residents signing a petition calling on the Council to maintain weekly waste collections. 

Wokingham Borough Council shall 

1.    Accept the views of those who signed the petition and the 76% of residents who responded to the Council’s consultation on future waste collection who did not like the idea of moving to fortnightly general and dry recycling waste collections. 

2.    Maintain weekly kerbside collections of general, dry recycling and food waste. 

3.    Increase the proportion of materials recycled and reduce costs by offering residents more options. 

4.    Communicate better with residents to ensure they understand what they can recycle.’

Statement from the Chief Finance Officer:

The Chief Finance Officer comments are purely an assessment of the Financial Implications associated with the Motion as written and are not an opinion on the policy direction or intention contained within them.

There is an estimatedloss in savings of £150k in 2023/24, £500k in 2024/25, rising to £1m from 2025/26 onwards, directly associated with the Motion not to proceed with Alternative Waste Collection. Enhanced communications and diversion of waste aligned to a reduction in Blue Bags can be delivered within existing resources and this is estimated to generate up to £100k p.a. in saving. It is not possible to assess the financial implications associated with the proposal of ‘offering residents more options’ until those options have been identified.

Therefore, the net lost income directly associated with the Motion is estimated to be £150k 2023/24, £450k in 2024/25, rising to £900k from 2025/26 onwards and will need to be found from further cost reductions and/or additional sources of income in setting future years’ service budgets.

The Council considered a petition which had been submitted to the previous meeting on 16 February 2023. The petition, which contained over 1,500 signatures stated: 

“For 20 years, Wokingham Borough Council maintained a policy of having bins collected every week. Careful management of the Council’s money made this possible, even when other local authorities, strapped for cash, went to fortnightly, or even three-weekly collections.

Collecting bins every week is important.It means that families, especially with small children, aren’t stuck with nappies and other non-recyclable waste. A lot of homes in the Borough have nowhere to store waste and no external access to back gardens, leading to rubbish piling up in the streets and creating a public health issue.

The new Liberal Democrat led coalition administration running Wokingham Borough Council won’t commit to keeping weekly bin collection.

We challenged them to give a guarantee, and instead, they hide behind having a consultation. When asked if they would keep weekly bin collection, if local people said that’s what they wanted, Wokingham’s Coalition Administration refused to make that promise.

Please complete the Council’s consultation and explain why changing to two to three weekly collections is not acceptable.

If you want Wokingham Borough Council to carry on collecting your bins every week, please support our campaign.

Sign this petition and send a message that the Lib Dem-led coalition cannot ignore.

Keep WBC Weekly Bin Collections.”

Councillor Norman Jorgensen presented the petition and addressed the Council as follows:

“It is clear that the majority of residents wish to retain weekly waste collections. Over 2,000 people have now signed our petition and only 24% of respondents to the Council’s consultation liked the idea of moving to fortnightly collections.

The Council’s Lib Dem/Labour administration is planning to do away with weekly general and dry recycling waste collections and replace them with fortnightly collections despite the forecast cost of £2m to implement and the policy not being in the Lib Dem or Labour manifestos. Indeed, some of the ruling Coalition Members, in this room tonight, have previously pledged in their election literature, to maintain weekly waste collections.

The £2m implementation cost is largely due to the purchase of wheeled bins and taking on extra people to administer the change. Because of this upfront expenditure, there would be no savings arising from this scheme for several years. Any savings claimed for the fortnightly waste scheme arise from constraining the size of wheely bins provided and, hence, how much general waste residents can put out, forcing them to recycle more, recycling being cheaper for the Council than disposing of general waste.

The forecast savings are not guaranteed to be achieved. Conservative Councillors believe instead that savings can be achieved by making it easier to recycle by extending the range of materials that can be recycled and by encouraging residents to adopt recycling to a greater extent. A move to fortnightly collections would see a collection lorry turn up every week at residents’ homes, but it would take away less of people’s waste than previously.

Despite other nearby authorities moving to fortnightly or less frequent collections, previous Conservative administrations in Wokingham Borough have kept weekly waste collections over that 20 year period through careful management of the Council’s finances. Collection of waste and recycling are important universal services used by almost all residents in the Borough. Wokingham Conservative Councillors would retain weekly waste collection and make savings by enabling residents to recycle more of their household waste. Please support this Motion.”

In the ensuing debate, Councillor Stephen Conway stated that he understood the concerns of residents who signed the petition, but Members needed to recognise that many of their concerns could and would be addressed before the changes were made. Members should recognise the general level of acceptance for the changes, expressed in the Council’s consultation on this subject. The Opposition’s attempt to construe acceptance as objection seems a rather desperate tactic to undermine the clear message from the consultation. A significant majority of those who responded either supported or accepted the need for the changes.

Councillor Conway reminded Members of the context within which the Executive had made its decision. The Council was currently not able to secure the recycling rates that Members would like to see. The councils which were best-performing in terms of recycling all had alternate weekly collections. The evidence suggested that alternate weekly collection of residual waste encouraged more recycling. More recycling saved the Council and, therefore, the Council Taxpayer, money. It was worth reflecting that the Council had faced and continued to face considerable financial challenges. Double-digit inflation, rising demand for services, shortfalls in anticipated income and higher interest rates had put enormous pressure on the Council. As a result, difficult decisions had to be made. Changing the waste collection regime was one of those difficult decisions. The savings to be achieved when containerisation came in were considerable, about £1m each year. If the Opposition wanted to retain weekly residual waste collections they would have to come clean about where they were going to make savings of £1m per year, not just for one year but year after year.

As the petition organiser, Councillor Jorgensen submitted the following Motion, which was seconded by Councillor Gregor Murray.

“This Motion is a result of 1,800 residents signing a petition calling on the Council to maintain weekly waste collections.

Wokingham Borough Council shall:

1.     Accept the views of those who signed the petition and the 76% of residents who responded to the Council’s consultation on future waste collection who did not like the idea of moving to fortnightly general and dry recycling waste collections.

2.     Maintain weekly kerbside collections of general, dry recycling and food waste.

3.     Increase the proportion of materials recycled and reduce costs by offering residents more options.

4.     Communicate better with residents to ensure they understand what they can recycle.’

Council also considered a statement from the Chief Finance Officer which commented on the financial implications relating to the proposed Motion, as follows:

“The Chief Finance Officer comments are purely an assessment of the financial implications associated with the Motion as written and are not an opinion on the policy direction or intention contained within them.

There is an estimated loss in savings of £150k in 2023/24, £500k in 2024/25, rising to £1m from 2025/26 onwards, directly associated with the Motion not to proceed with Alternative Waste Collection. Enhanced communications and diversion of waste aligned to a reduction in Blue Bags can be delivered within existing resources and this is estimated to generate up to £100k per annum in savings.

It is not possible to assess the financial implications associated with the proposal of ‘offering residents more options’ until those options have been identified. Therefore, the net lost income directly associated with the Motion is estimated to be £150k in 2023/24, £450k in 2024/25, rising to £900k from 2025/26 onwards and will need to be found from further cost reductions and/or additional sources of income in setting future years’ service budgets.”

In line with the Council Constitution, six Members requested that a recorded vote be held on the Motion.

Upon being put to the vote, the voting was as follows:

Following the vote, the Mayor announced that the Motion was CARRIED, in the following terms:

That Wokingham Borough Council shall:

1)     accept the views of those who signed the petition and the 76% of residents who responded to the Council’s consultation on future waste collection who did not like the idea of moving to fortnightly general and dry recycling waste collections;

2)     maintain weekly kerbside collections of general, dry recycling and food waste;

3)     increase the proportion of materials recycled and reduce costs by offering residents more options;

4)     communicate better with residents to ensure they understand what they can recycle.