The purchase will allow Blyth Valley Council to concentrate on its domestic waste services, whilst giving Premier access to a potential 700 new clients for Europrem, its trade waste arm.
Eve Black, a councillor at Blyth Valley said: “We see the transfer of business from the borough council to Premier as a positive step.”
By selling its trade waste disposal business to Durham County Council owned Premier Waste, Blyth Valley Council will be using the money acquired from the sale on tackling problems such as fly-tipping, which is on the increase.
Councillor Black said: “We do operate a bulky items pick up service, although sometimes the public cannot wait to have their waste collected and they just dump it in beauty spots,” she said.
Ways in which to tackle this are yet to be finalised, but are thought to centre on erecting fencing around these areas.
Recycling
The sale to Premier will also help to fund a time-phased scheme providing residents with recycling bins. As the council did not receive any funds from DEFRA’s waste minimisation and recycling fund after its bid was rejected, the council has been wholly funding a recycle bin scheme. It hopes to use the funds gained from the sale of Premier to further expand the scheme to the rest of the Blyth Valley residents.
“We arranged to introduce green recycling bins every two weeks, which is not always something that goes down well in a mining town,” said Councillor Black.
As only 2% of Blyth Valley’s waste has been recycled – a long way off from the 25% target it is scheduled to meet by 2005, Ms Black said the “sale was well timed” to allow more resources to be put towards educating the community on the benefits of recycling as well as expanding the recycling bin schemes.
The annual turnover of Blyth Valley waste collection and disposal service is said to be around 250,000, with the acquisition, according to Premier Waste Management, effectively doubling its Europrem service, which was launched last September.
“To date, Premier Waste Management has a 30 million annual turnover, and will continue to grow organically,” said Premier Waste director, Gary Whitehead.
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