Districts shun Worcestershire-wide waste talks

Several district councils in Worcestershire have declined to take part in discussions over whether waste collection services should be managed on a county-wide basis.

Worcestershire county council is currently investigating whether cost savings could be made by managing waste collections on behalf of the six district authorities in the region, which currently all operate their own separate waste collection services.

Although a county council task panel has been set up to investigate the potential impact of county-wide waste collections and produce a report in October 2014, all but one Worcester city council of the districts have declined to sit on the panel.

According to Worcestershire county councillor Ken Pollock, who chairs the scrutiny task panel set up to look into the idea, some district councils would be greatly upset if they were forced to give up their responsibility for waste collection services to the county council.

Cllr Pollock who also chairs the county councils Economy, Environment and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel said: District councils really do two things planning and waste so if they give up waste collection it is a bit emasculating.

He added: What we are talking about is reducing the management costs of those six councils to what would be a single organisation. It is possible you might be able to get a better deal together than if you go out and buy equipment or services for a single organisation.

In terms of the actual organisation all district councils are more or less the same. Most use wheelie bins, although one council [Malvern Hills] does use black bags.

Councillor Pollock said he felt it was important to get the district councils involved but that due to their current lack of appetite for involvement in the panel discussions, unless it could be shown that large savings were possible, he was not greatly confident that anything will happen, but you may regard me as a pessimist.

Wychavon

Five district councils in Worcestershire Worcester city council, Bromsgrove, Wyre Forest, Malvern Hills and Redditch operate their waste collection services in-house. Wychavon district council, meanwhile, operates its waste collections through a contract with FCC Environment.

However, Wychavon district councils head of community services Phil Merrick said that it was in favour of the jointly working with other districts on waste and recycling collections, but that it was taking part in these discussions outside the county council the task panel.

Councillor Merrick said: The concept of working collectively on waste and recycling is not new in Worcestershire and we have a strong track record of joint working. This includes common collection services, joint promotion activities and route optimisation activities. We are keen to support this further in the future and we are promoting a joint waste and recycling collection contract with other districts. These discussions started in advance of the task group and will be the focus of our work.

Investigation

The county council agreed to investigate county-wide waste services in January 2014 after a motion was passed which stated: It is frequently suggested that large savings can be achieved by combining district councils responsibility for collection of waste with the county councils responsibility for disposal.

As a result, the motion called for the council to set up a Task and Finish Group in conjunction with the cabinet member with responsibility to investigate the potential of an integrated refuse collection and disposal service across the county leading to greater efficiency and more sustainable outcomes.

While there are plans for fact-finding visits to see how waste services operate in Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse, the panel has only met once and councillor Pollock conceded that we havent started very much.

Meanwhile, the start of construction on Worcestershire county councils joint energy-from-waste project with Herefordshire county council at Hartlebury is still being awaited. The plant is being developed under a 25-year PFI deal with Mercia Wate Management and will have the capacity to treat 200,000 tonnes of waste each year from the two counties (see letsrecycle.com story).