Birmingham city council was forced to roll out extra collection services at the weekend, after it reached a tipping point on the amount of green waste discarded by residents.
The move follows mounting pressure from residents to address the problem of rotting green waste, which has built up on streets across the city following the introduction of a controversial garden tax earlier this year.
In January, the Labour-run council announced it would charge residents 35 a year for opt-in green bag collections of garden waste in order to cut two thirds of its controllable budget.
But last week, Conservative councillor for Edgbaston Deirdre Alden told letsrecycle.com the decision had resulted in an increase in flytipping, and warned of hour long queues to household recycling centres that have warranted a police presence (see letsrecycle.com story).
The issue has now developed into a key battleground for Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors hoping to make gains in the upcoming local elections on Thursday (May 22), with both parties promising to axe the garden tax if it wins the majority vote.
James McKay, cabinet member for a green, safe and smart city, today defended the charge arguing the council would have needed to find 2.5 million of savings from elsewhere in the budget if they had carried on subsiding the old collection costs.
But, he went on to declare a limited response to the growing crisis, admitting the council had rolled out collection crews on Saturday to clear-up the bags of waste regardless of whether residents had paid or not.
Widespread
Councillor McKay said: Despite widespread publicity about the new service, including writing to every household as part of the Council Tax billing process this March, it is clear that not every household has got the message and some have continued to put out their green waste for collection.
In this transitional year we need to think about those residents who have paid for the new collection service, but also about maintaining the cleanliness of local neighbourhoods where residents either havent got the message or have decided to ignore it.
There is a fine balance to be drawn between maintaining the confidence of our valued paying customers and ensuring that local neighbourhoods dont deteriorate to such an extent where there is an overall detrimental effect on the city.
He added the council would continue to reinforce the message that the free collection service has now stopped and that the dumping of green waste is an offence.
Anger
Meanwhile, John Hemming, Liberal Democrat MP for Brimingham Yardley, told letsrecycle.com the decision to clear up all garden waste was welcome but the move has angered residents who opted to pay the 35 charge at the start of the year.
Mr Hemming was last week seeking a court order to force Birmingham city council to clear the dumped waste.
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Commenting on the councils decision, he said: Its welcome that they are clearing up some of the mess but it shows the policy cannot work. You cant just leave the city to fester, and it shows Labour as incompetent.
My view is we should not be obsessed with collecting green waste centrally, we should be encouraging people to compost the material. But if youre going to collect the garden waste, residents should not be charged for it.
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