Cotswold hits back at criticism of waste service

The comments come in the wake of Lord Ashdown, Liberal Democrats campaign leader for the West Country, claiming the council had exceeded spending on a revised waste collection service when it was introduced in June 2008.

Lord Ashdown, who had been speaking in the wake of the Conservative Party launching its manifesto (see letsrecycle.com story), acknowledged improved recycling performance by the Conservative-led Cotswold district council but claimed the service to residents had been reduced.

Lord Ashdown said: “The project was overspent by a massive £1 million in its first year, out of a total annual council budget of £9 million, and Cotswold district council's waste service ranks as the second highest in the area in terms of cost per household.

“So, despite pushing up recycling rates they have overseen botched project management, massive overspending and at the same time actually reduced the service people have.”

The council had seen a vast improvement in its recycling performance since the introduction of the new service, with it achieving a 60.83% recycling and composting rate in 2008/09 compared to 43.29% in 2007/08 – when it had only the new service for six months (see letsrecycle.com story).

Response

In response to Lord Ashdown's comments, the council admitted it was “no secret” that its initial outlay for the service was “rather high”, but it claimed that Lord Ashdown had not taken a number of factors relating to introducing the contract into account.

The funding helped the council, with its waste contractor SITA UK, roll-out alternate weekly collections of recycling and residual waste with weekly food collections. The council changed its kerbside recycling service to be ‘twin stream', with a bag for cardboard and card and a box for paper, magazines, glass bottles and jars, cans and tins and aerosols.

In addition, the council restricted the size of the residual waste bin, introducing a 180 litre wheeled bin, and also started a charged-for garden waste collection scheme.

A Cotswold district council spokesman said: “It is clear that Lord Ashdown is not aware that the costs of waste collection within a rural district such as the Cotswolds – some 450 square miles – are always going to be a lot higher compared with an urban area because of the increased distances involved.”

“It's no secret that the initial outlay to get this all off the ground may have seemed rather high, but this ‘spend to save' measure is now beginning to pay real dividends, both financially and from an environmental standpoint.”

And, the council has also identified £270,000 worth of savings, which it intends to achieve through introducing collection ‘zones', reducing the number of employees on collection crews and upgrading existing vehicles.

The plan to introduce collection zones, which was approved by the council in August 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story), will see the Gloucestershire local authority work with its waste contractor SITA UK to divide the council area into 10 separate collection areas, with crews focussing on one zone every day.

The spokesman added: “We remain committed to driving down the costs of waste collection and, once all of our planned service efficiencies have been completed, our waste contract should be delivering even better value for money.”