Recipients of 250m weekly fund revealed

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) will fund 90 projects from 85 councils who will see some form of waste collection service on a weekly basis retained or introduced. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, who has championed the fund, said it will help over six million families.

The fund was created in February 2012 and the DCLG said it would support weekly collections that harness innovation, use new technology and rewards schemes to increase recycling. The CLG said ministers were concerned that without the fund, weekly bin collections could have disappeared by 2015, as is happening in other parts of the UK such as Northern Ireland.

For more information on the thinking behind today’s announcement see our interview with DCLG minister Brandon Lewis.

Bids

The successful bids cover a range of projects, all based around the weekly collection of some form of waste and recycling. The projects include: introducing or retaining weekly food waste collections; improving services to flats; increasing the frequency of recycling collections; and, rewarding residents for recycling through incentive and reward schemes.

Almost half (41) of the projects will offer genuine rewards such as shopping vouchers or loyalty points for recycling. It is hoped that such new schemes will encourage further take up across the country.

Bexley, Bradford, Leicester city, Portsmouth and Windsor & Maidenhead are among the recipients. The biggest award is going to Birmingham city council which will receive nearly 30 million to implement a recycling reward scheme for all households and move for 100,000 households from fortnightly to weekly collections of recycling. For a full list of the successful bids, click here.

“Every Englishman has a basic right to have their household rubbish taken away each and every week.”

– Communities Secretary Eric Pickles

Relief

Mr Pickles said: Every Englishman has a basic right to have their household rubbish taken away each and every week it is the most visible council service people get. Yet under the previous administration weekly bin collections halved while their council tax bills doubled.

Over six million families will breathe a sigh of relief tonight because we have put a stop to the fetid fortnightly rot and saved many weekly collections from extinction, all while increasing recycling rates by hundreds of thousands of tonnes to boot.

Research

The CLG said research found that almost two-thirds of people think frequent and regular rubbish collections are the most important feature of the waste service. Another survey found that two thirds of the public thought Government should mandate weekly collections; that weekly collections were better; and that problems with flies and smells were much worse with fortnightly collections.

It added that the governments has already scrapped bin taxes plans via the Localism Act; reversed Audit Commission rules which marked down councils for not adopting fortnightly rubbish collections; and abolished Whitehall targets which created perverse incentives to downgrade waste collection services.

The department will continue to work with DEFRA to spread best practice on weekly collections, challenge poor procurement or unpopular approaches.