WARRINGTON Borough Council’s controversial £30-a-year garden waste collection service launches on March 7 – and residents are being urged to sign up for it now.
People who sign up online will have to pay £30 while those who pay via Contact Warrington, in Horsemarket Street, whether in person or by ‘phone will have to pay £33.
People who don’t pay will no longer receive the service, which has been free in the past.
But they will still be able to take their refuse to a council recycling depot and dispose of it for free.
The fee covers fortnightly collections over nine months from March to November.
Cllr Judith Guthrie, the council’s lead member for the environment, said: “We don’t want to introduce this charge, but we have suffered £90 million of government-imposed austerity cuts in recent years and must find another £41 million by 2020. This means that we have to take a critical look at every service we deliver or commission – especially non-statutory services such as this.
“Garden waste collection isn’t a statutory service, but we still want to provide it and we hope that many of our existing customers will continue to recycle their green waste.
“The charge amounts to just 58 pence per week over the course of a year, it’s similar to that already charged by nearly half of the local authorities in England, and the revenue will help us continue to provide essential services to the people of the borough.
“Residents are still able to use the council’s recycling centres for free if they choose not to have their green bin collected.”
Leaflets explaining the changes to the garden waste service are currently being distributed to households borough-wide.
But when the new charge was announced last year, many residents said they would not pay it and predicted a big increase in fly-tipping in the borough. There was also anger over the extra £3 charge for people who cannot or who choose not to pay online.
Councils who already charge for green waste collection on average charge £35 – with some charging as much as £60.
To sign up for the service CLICK HERE
6 Comments
Why do they always state the charge equates to 58p per week over the course of a year when collection are only made for 9 months? Why not say it equates to £3.34 per calender month based on the 9 months collection ?
Anyway that aside……clicking on the link and reading the Terms and Conditions page makes interesting reading especially these few rules
6) The council reserves the right to audit black, blue and green wheeled bins at any time to ensure proper use. Garden waste should not be placed in black or blue bins. Any black or blue bins that are found to contain garden waste will NOT be emptied.
13) All green bins at your property must be for the sole use of people resident at your property and for garden waste produced at your property.
Point 13 is ridiculous as it means neighbours who may only have small gardens or say one has a lawn and the other doesn’t but other has a hedge and no lawn so between them one bin will suffice so may wish to now share a green bin and the cost between…. elderly residents may wish to share a bin and the cost too…. so they wont be able to ???
Of course they could still do it on the sly but would the council be peering over the walls and fencing to determine if the bins licence holder has got a lawn if there is grass in the bin or whether that is from the neighbours house ?? WHAT DOES IT MATTER if someone is paying the charge for the bin collection but allowing others to use their bin too.
Get a grip WBC and stop being picky !!!
I put leaves into my green bin which blew across from the WBC owned park across the road, does this mean that I would be in violation of rule 13 since the the garden waste was not produced on my properly? Am I within my rights to tip this waste back on the park??
Let’s try and apply some common sense to this. We are paying to retain a service which is not statutory and ensuring those who don’t want them or don’t need them are not paying for something which they don’t want. Much fairer system but should have been charged for from day one instead of giving them out free of charge to people whether or not they wanted one.
Firstly let me state that as I’m disabled I am unable to drive any more.
We have no trees of our own, yet every Autumn we fill at least 3 green bins with leaves off of the trees on two neighbouring properties and the park next door. We have two pet Rabbits viz a viz, our lawn never needs cutting, I have no garden to use the leaves on as ‘leaf mold’ yet some how you expect me to pay to dispose of other peoples garden waste?!
Me thinks I’ll sweep them up and dump them in the gutter and let the council pay to clear up their own rubbish.
Also doesn’t anybody realise that this way will only lead to more ‘fly tipping’ ?
How will the bin men monitor who has paid for the service?
Bins will be labelled so the bin men know which ones to empty – they will also check your bins to check they contain the right materials – any abuse of black or blue bins will result in no bins being emptied.