Speaking yesterday (October 19) at the LARAC – Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee – conference in Warwickshire, Lord Taylor said with regard to what might count as a weekly service that “I imagine that food waste probably would.”
The 250 million fund was announced on the eve of the Conservative Party conference by Secretary of state for communities and local government, Eric Pickles, ostensibly as money to help councils reintroduce weekly residual waste collections (see letsrecycle.com story).
Full details of the fund are yet to be formally revealed, but councils have called for it to be made available for weekly food waste collections (see letsrecycle.com story).
At the event yesterday, Lord Taylor, who reports to the Secretary of state for the environment, Caroline Spelman, was challenged by a number of delegates over the fund and exactly what it was for.
Responding to Helen Amos, technical researcher at CIWM, who asked whether the fund was for targeting either residual or smelly waste, the minister said: “the whole idea is to develop a programme to devise ways where the pressure for waste collections does not conflict with high levels of recycling.
“This will increase the number of schemes that deal with food waste and recycling in general. It will be by a competitive grant and local authorities are not obliged to be involved. If local authorities are happy with where they are, they don’t have to be involved.”
LARAC policy adviser Andrew Craig questioned the definition of residual. Lord Taylor responded that the government was “in the process of devising the terms of the fund. We want to encourage local authorities to refine ways that local authorities can provide a scheme to provide a weekly service.”
However, to the surprise of some of the 300 recycling officers present, Lord Taylor confided that the details of the fund were being drawn up in DCLG and “I am not a party to this particular scheme but I am a party to the strategy.”
Huge step backwards
Lord Taylors address followed some strong words from Councillor Alan Cockburn of Warwickshire county council who said: “The weekly waste programme is a huge step backwards in reducing recycling rates and will cost millions in landfill.”
Cllr Cockburn said: “I think we know best. Alternate weekly collections have been a real success in Warwickshire and they have dramatically increased recycling rates and saved large sums of money.”
Lord Taylor said: “We want to work with you to increase the frequency of household and recycling collections. This is the aim of the fund. We believe that you are best placed, and I would like to reassure Cllr Cockburn, that you are best placed and this is most likely to deliver the best service in terms of quality and recycling.”
David Mansell, of the Somerset Waste Partnership, said that attacks by government ministers on local authority waste services were “totally unhelpful”. Referring to Mr Pickles, he said: “We are quite fed up with one government minister confusing residents on the ground.”
And a delegate from Carlisle said that the authority would not be putting forward a scheme and there was no appetite for a return to weekly waste collections.
Lord Taylor responded: “Then you won’t be putting forward a scheme for this money. It’s entirely up to local authorities to respond to what their council tax payees and businesses want from them.
And the minister also moved to counter concerns in the audience that the existence of the fund could encourage residents to challenge council policies, telling the audience that councils were there to be challenged over their services.
He said: “I understand what you are saying. We are there in public life to be challenged by those to whom we provide the service. If you are confident in what you are doing, then don’t be apprehensive.”
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