Councils shun grants aimed at return to weekly bin collections

Councils in Yorkshire are shunning a £250m pot of Government money aimed at getting them to switch back from fortnightly rubbish collections to weekly rounds, a survey suggests.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles announced the funding before last autumn’s Tory party conference, saying he believed every household in England had “a basic right” to have their rubbish collected every week.

Grants will be awarded from April to local authorities which guarantee to retain or reinstate weekly waste collections for at least five years, and which demonstrate the potential to increase recycling rates.

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However, a survey suggests few have the appetite to return to weekly rounds, including Tory councils.

Over half of those from Yorkshire who responded to the poll, Rotherham, Ryedale, Doncaster, Wakefield, Harrogate and York, were not planning to apply for funding ahead of this week’s March 16 deadline for expressions of interest. Scarborough, Barnsley and Craven said they were considering it.

Local authorities who are turning down the cash say it won’t cover the costs of a return to weekly collections and are concerned that funding is only there for three years, when they have to give a five-year weekly round guarantee.

They also say the move towards fortnightly collections has boosted recycling rates significantly and there is no demand from householders for a return to more frequent waste rounds.

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Sheffield Council decided to go from weekly to fortnightly black bin collections, with increased flexibility around recycling, at their budget setting meeting on Friday.

Labour councillor Jack Scott, who represents Arbourthorne, said the five years the scheme had to run would cost the council £20m, and even if they got a £2.5m chunk of the money, they would still be more than £17m worse off.

He said: “If Eric Pickles has suddenly found £250m that he wasn’t doing anything with, what he should have been doing instead of trying to pull the wool over councillors’ eyes to keep weekly bin collections, would be to put it back into the general grant and help protect vital front-line services.”

General waste collections in the Derbyshire Dales will also go fortnightly this summer, at the same time that a new weekly-collected food caddy is introduced and a new fortnightly blue recycling bin.

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The survey received responses from 59 English councils. Local authorities not applying for funding included a dozen Conservative councils, eight of whom have fortnightly rubbish collections or are moving to the system.

Not one of the councils with fortnightly rubbish collections said they planned to apply for funding to increase the frequency with which they collect black-bin rubbish.

Just four said they wanted funding to help maintain weekly bin rounds, two of which were Labour-controlled and two were Conservative councils.

A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesman said: “Rubbish collections are the most visible service people get from their £120-a-month council tax bill and ministers believe every household in England has a basic right to have their rubbish collected every week.”

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David Parsons, chairman of the Local Government Association’s environment board, said: “Councils know that what matters most to people is having a reliable and efficient bin collection service that allows them to recycle easily. This can be achieved in different ways, depending on what works well for residents in a particular area.

“We know this local approach is working because more than four in every five people say they are satisfied with the way in which their bins are collected.”

Hilary Benn, Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, said: “The best people to decide how bins are collected are local people and these figures show that councils are rejecting Eric Pickles’s bin bait. At a time when councils are being forced to cut the services people rely on like SureStart and adult social care, this money could be put to much better use.”