One-star rating for South Kesteven

However, the Lincolnshire council has been criticised for not reducing waste, not providing the same recycling services to all residents and not recycling its own waste.

The announcement comes following an inspection of South Kesteven's environmental services by the government watchdog during the roll out of an alternate weekly “twin bin” waste collection service for waste and recycling – after which the council was awarded a “fair”, one-out-of-three star rating, with “promising prospects for improvement.”

Chris Wilson, senior manager at the Audit Commission, said: “South Kesteven has improved its waste and street-scene services dramatically over the last few years. The district is now predominantly clean and the new twin-bin scheme has increased the amounts of household waste collected for recycling.

“But the council has yet to reduce its own impact on the environment and ensure that all its plans come to fruition,” he added.

Targets

According to the Audit Commission inspection, South Kesteven council has exceeded its statutory target for recycling household waste, with a 26% recycling rate in 2005/06 when its target was 18%. And, in 2006/07 it has reported that this has increased to a recycling rate of 32%.

The refuse collection service was also described as “reliable” and the twin bin service – which includes a silver bin for plastic bottles and cartons, cans, paper, card and textiles and a black bin for residual household waste – was found to be appreciated by local people.

The report said: “Overall satisfaction of the refuse collection service is higher than average for English district councils.”

However, Audit Commission officers said that the council had not delivered ambitions such as leading the way in recycling by recycling its own waste or providing an equal recycling service to residents.

Writing in the report, officers said: “And, although one of the intentions of the twin bin system was to provide the same level of service across the entire district, this has not been achieved. There is a waiting list for green bins for composing and some properties have yet to receive their recycling collection, although there are clear plans for the recycling scheme to be rolled out across the district.”

Other areas the Audit Commission criticised were that South Kesteven collected more waste than most other district councils and was not doing more to reduce waste.

“Whilst this increase is largely attributed to the introduction of garden waste collections, the council has not analysed this or identified the impact that this may have had on other services,” it said.