Daventry district council and Northampton borough council have been working together for 18 months to investigate the potential for budgetary savings that could be achieved through combining services such as waste and recycling collections.
These services will include waste and recycling collections, parks maintenance and street scene.
The councils claim that the partnership approach will save them millions of pounds over the course of the proposed seven-year deal. They were unable to give specific figures but the savings are said to be drawn from efficiencies from sharing systems and avoiding duplication.
A spokeswoman for Northampton borough council said she was unable to give further details regarding the contract, such as its projected start date, as the council was adhering to legal responsibilities around the contract.
It is understood that the contract will involve changes to the existing waste and recycling collections in the respective boroughs. The councils said that services in their respective areas were set to benefit from external investment in vehicles and depot infrastructure.
Improvement
Councillor Daniel Cribbin, environmental portfolio holder at Daventry district council, said: This process will achieve better quality service for residents at a lower cost for both councils. We are pleased that this new partnership between ourselves, Northampton and Enterprise Managed Services will allow us to build further on a national reputation achieved locally for innovative work in environmental services.
Cllr Trini Crake, cabinet member for environment at Northampton borough council, added: Staff at both councils currently work hard and deliver an excellent service for local people, however, by going to the market in partnership we have been able to talk with big specialist companies who can do things at a lower cost and to a very high standard, as they have economies of scale we cannot match.
Northampton borough council had agreed in principle to name Enterprise as preferred bidder for the deal at a meeting on February 8 2011. This decision was then subject to a call-in by members on February 17 2011, however, the spokeswoman said the call-in was not upheld.
Service
Over the coming weeks, the two local authorities intend to make further announcements about the proposed commercial partnership with Enterprise and how this will impact services in Northampton and Daventry.
Both councils currently operate in-house collection services for waste in recycling. In Northampton, residents have a 240 litre wheeled bin for residual waste and a box system, with paper and card collected in a green box, plastics, cans and foil in a blue box, and a black box for glass bottles and jars.
Meanwhile, Daventry collects food and drinks cans, mixed glass, aerosols and plastic bottles in a blue box, fibrous materials in a red box, garden waste and cardboard in a 240 litre in a brown wheeled bin and it also operates a textile bag collection. Residual waste is collected in a 240 litre grey wheeled bin on alternate weeks to the brown wheeled bin.
