When the Borough Council set out to develop a new waste collection strategy, back when the Conservatives were running the council, we started from a baseline of high waste volume per household coupled with a recycling rate well below the best in England and even further behind the best in Wales.
We knew that we had to improve on both counts, by reducing our waste tonnage and increasing our recycling rate.
We also needed to reduce the cost of the service, to divert money to other services to offset the effect of this government’s systematic and unforgivable impoverishment of Wokingham and similar councils that they perceive as “better off” areas.
Per capita, we are the worst-funded Unitary Authority (UA) in the country, and if we received the average of other UAs, we would have an extra £30 million per annum for essential services. Instead, our council tax increases have repeatedly been capped below inflation while our Revenue Support Grant has been cut to zero since 2017.
So, we consulted experts in the field of waste management, and the answer came back very strongly that we could not hope to match the performance of the best councils unless we adopted a similar collection regime, alternating recycling with general waste alongside a weekly collection of food waste.
And use wheeled bins, they said.
This largely informed our decision, but as we finished deliberating, it became clear that the government have stated an objective of creating consistency of collections across England, and plan to issue Improvement Notices to those councils that fall short of the best performers.
Hence, we are satisfied that our decision is the right one, as remaining with our current arrangements would fall foul of government intentions.
As we can proceed at our own pace, rather than one dictated by the government, we will ensure that the wheeled bin for general waste will only be introduced after a full survey to determine which properties cannot accommodate one.
We will also work to identify larger families that need a larger bin, those with medical needs that generate extra waste, and those who may need assisted collections. We will also consider requests for bins to be shared between households.
For the time being, we will continue with the existing green sacks for dry recycling, and extra sacks will be available on request.
We are doing this because the government has indicated an intention to impose recycling changes on councils, and so we will not alter our arrangements until they spell out their requirements. Given this government’s avoidance of decisions, the green sacks may be with us for a while yet.
Cllr Ian Shenton is the executive Member for Environment, Sport & Leisure, Wokingham Borough Council and ward member for Evendons
