By Cllr Norman Jorgensen
Following the decision by the Lib/Lab coalition to scrap the provision of food waste bags, this week’s full council agenda was a turn up for the books.
It admitted that the decision to scrap food waste bags was not made properly, it also blamed Council officers for the decision having been made at all.
The latter might have been believable if it hadn’t been for the press release of July 13, when both the Lib/Lab Coalition Leader and the Liberal Exec member for the Environment trumpeted their new policy.
The LD Exec member waxed lyrical about how their decision to scrap the caddy liners was good for the environment.
We Conservatives are concerned that stopping the provision of food waste bags will result in a reduction in food waste recycling at a time when we are trying to increase it.
We had set a target to save £350,000 a year by increasing food waste recycling, diverting food waste from Blue Bags to the food recycling scheme.
The Liberals also claimed that Conservatives removed the funding for the bags, this is simply incorrect, we did not identify any savings in the budget related to food waste bags.
There seems to be a pattern developing of secret decision making followed by attempts to blame others when things don’t work out as they hoped.
The decision will now go to the Executive to be made properly.
This Executive is 100% Liberal Democrat controlled, so we will be pressing them to reconsider and continue providing bags, but we don’t expect them to listen.
Cllr Norman Jorgensen is the Shadow Executive Member for Environment & Leisure and a Conservative councillor for Maiden Erlegh
