By Cllr Andy Croy
Questions that get asked more or less every week when door knocking are, “Why doesn’t Wokingham Borough have wheelie bins” and “Why on earth on do we use blue bags?”, clearly two very closely related questions.
I have been a fan of blue bags. They were introduced to ration the volume of waste material households left outside and to encourage residents to recycle material that which could be recycled, so a good thing.
I, like many people, have never had problems with foxes (but foxes do roam our street) or other critters spreading the contents of the blue bag all over the place but I do know this is an issue for some areas.
The relative cost of buying blue bags (cheap) compared to wheelie bins (expensive) has been suggested as a reason to stick with blue bags.
I was therefore astonished to see the proposal by the LibDem administration of Wokingham Borough Council which suggested that switching to wheelie bins from blue bags would save the Council about £1 million a year.
Of course, nothing is quite that simple and under the proposals, the bin lorries would collect waste in wheelie bins one week and the next week would collect recyclables in the green bags.
Food waste collection would stay weekly.
If all goes to plan, the wheelie bins would go live in the summer next year.
As one would expect there would be initial set-up costs, but once the scheme was running as planned, £1 million per year would be saved and several thousand extra tonnes of material would be recycled. It would seem bizarre in the extreme to NOT want these outcomes.
So now we turn to the Conservatives.
I understand the Conservatives, in another of their increasingly desperate attempts to put as much distance between themselves and an unpopular government as possible, have been asking people to sign a petition keep weekly collections and by default to keep blue bags.
I have to assume that when they were collecting the signatures the Conservatives did not explain that protecting their blue bag system would cost Council Tax payers an extra £1 million a year.
I also suspect the Conservatives did not explain that sticking to their inefficient and expensive bags had probably cost an extra £10 million since blue bags were first introduced, all paid for by the hard-pressed Council Tax payer.
I know some of my residents will be concerned about the ability of some people to manage to move the wheelie bins or will have concerns about storage and other issues related to the change. I share these concerns.
I also take some comfort from knowing that, thanks to Conservative tardiness in this matter, 85% of other councils in England have already switched to a similar system so I, and I am sure every other Councillor, will be pressing our officers to ensure we learn from the experience of other councils who will have learned a lot about how to make the implementation and running of the new system as smooth as possible.
But what of the cost I hear you cry?
A wheelie bin is more expensive than a blue bag – more expensive than a whole roll of blue bags.
Well yes, it is. But a wheelie bin will last for so much longer. In fact, wheelie bins for the borough will cost the same as just five years’ supply of blue bags. So by year six, on this measure alone the wheelie bins will be in profit.
There are other savings as well (to do with increased efficiency of bin lorry movements and increased recycling) which means the Council’s finances will be about £500,000 ahead in 2024 and £1 million ahead in 2025 and every year thereafter.
The Council’s plan is to spread the cost of the wheelie bins and implementation over 13 years, which feels right to me.
Change can be difficult. But sometimes we make a change and think “why on earth didn’t I do that earlier?” This is one of those times.
Presented with better information, I have changed my opinion.
I hope the Conservatives will change their opinion too. If they do not, residents will make their own mind up about whether or not the Conservatives can be trusted with their money.
The issue of money and finance is one area, after all, where they really do need to put as much distance between their government and themselves as possible.
Cllr Andy Croy is Labour ward member for Bulmershe and Whitegates on Wokingham Borough Council
