Cherwell district council and South Northamptonshire council have merged their in-house bring banks, bulky and commercial waste and recycling services in a bid to save 200,000 per year.
However, household recycling and waste collections will not be affected by the merger, with each council continuing with its current collection arrangements.
The shared environmental services agreement has been implemented in two stages, resulting in five management posts being cut including two voluntary redundancies. The other three roles are being cut by not replacing vacant posts, the councils said.
Implementation began in autumn 2013 with the merger of bring banks, bulky waste and commercial waste services. According to the councils, this first stage produced savings in vehicles and staff but without the need for redundancies.
The second stage of implementation jobs cuts and changes to the management structure then took place from April 1 2014. This leaves the new management team with six service managers a reduction of two from the previous set up.
Service
The six service managers are: Brendan Bodger (street cleansing manager); Mark Harmon (environmental enforcement manager); Paul Almond (street scene and landscape manager); Eloise Attwood (service development & commercial waste manager); Ian Upstone (waste resource collection manager); Ed Potter (head of environmental services), and; Stuart Cruickshank (fleet manager).
Cherwell’s lead member for clean and green issues, councillor Nigel Morris, said: We’ve gone a long way down the road of sharing structures and services between the two councils. But we can do more – so it makes sense to combine our waste collection operations in a move that will see overall savings for the two council of more than 200k a year.
Although the two councils are in separate counties, they also share some legal and democratic services as well as some human resources services.
‘We’ve gone a long way down the road of sharing structures and services between the two councils. But we can do more – so it makes sense to combine our waste collection operations in a move that will see overall savings for the two council of more than 200k a year.’
Cherwell district councillor Nigel Morris
Household collections
Cherwell council, which in 2012/13 recycled 54.85% of its household waste, will continue to collect mixed recyclables (without glass) in blue bins and food waste and garden waste in brown bins on a fortnightly basis, alternating with a fortnightly green bin residual waste service.
The Oxfordshire council also offers a small household waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) collection alongside its recycling services, which saw more than 19 tonnes of WEEE collected in just two months last year (see letsrecycle.com story).
Meanwhile, South Northamptonshire council alternates its fortnightly blue recycling bin (commingled with glass) and green garden waste bin collection with the fortnightly collection of black bins for residual waste. Since summer 2013, the council has also operated a weekly food waste collection.
In 2012/13, South Northamptonshire recycled, reused or composted 48.76% of its waste.
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