The authority told letsrecycle.com this week that more than 2,000 people had responded to a survey which has just closed, over a range of proposals aiming to save £400,000 on collections and street cleaning next year. Services are provided by the council’s direct labour organisation.
Speaking ahead of the consultation, Councillor Mohammed Iqbal, portfolio holder for communication explained: “We’re urging people to have a say because we need to know which of the proposals local residents would find the most acceptable.”
Pendle council explained that it was “canvassing local opinion to inform councillors who’ll have to make some difficult decisions to help meet the total savings target for next year of £1.2 million.
“We have to save money on services due to ongoing reductions in our funding from the government which have totalled £7 million since 2010,” Councillor Iqbal said.
And, the councillor highlighted the loss of government funding as well as loss of income under cost sharing from Lancashire county council next year.
He said: “With the loss of Lancashire county council’s annual subsidy of £760,000 towards our waste and recycling service from 1st April, we don’t have the option to do nothing,” stated Councillor Iqbal.
The proposals Pendle Council is consulting on includes the most likely option of keeping the grey bin refuse collections fortnightly but changing the brown bin (for cans, bottles and clean foil) and paper and card recycling collections to every three or four weeks instead of the current two weeks.
Sub-region
The Borough of Pendle, with a population of about 90,000, is located in north-west England, on the border between Lancashire and Yorkshire. It is one of 12 district councils in the ‘red rose county’ and forms part of the Pennine Lancashire sub-region with Nelson (29,000) is the largest town and administrative centre.
The authority’s consultation comes after the county council gave district councils notice that its Cost Sharing Agreement is to terminate on 31 March 2018.
Pendle’s executive committee has heard that: “This will mean that Pendle will no longer receive the annual £760,000 income from the county Council thus exacerbating the difficulty in identifying savings… It is not yet clear whether the Council will receive any income by way of recycling credits or otherwise from the county council. Any income received will be substantially less than amount received under the Cost Sharing Agreement.”
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