Swale council set to investigate its waste contract

Councillors have held the first meeting of the working group, regarding the new contact that started in March of this year.

The group is set to look at supposed “issues” surrounding resources and staffing, data and rounds, contract and project management and communications, over the next couple of months.

This will be done using a range of methods to get information and feedback, including workshops with council officers and Suez representatives and consultations with area committees and the Parish Forum. There will also be a public survey going out to ask for people’s experiences with new contract.

‘A constructive start’

Councillor Rich Lehmann, chair of the environment and climate change committee, who is also chairing the review, said: “We know the start of this contract has not gone well. We want to hold a detailed investigation into what happened, what went wrong, and how we can improve.

“Councillors from all political groups will be taking part in the review, and this first meeting was a constructive start to what I think will be a valuable process.

“We’ve agreed the approach we’ll take and fleshed out the issues we’ll be looking at, and now we will begin the work to carry out a thorough review of how the contract has begun.

“A key part of this will be hearing from local voices with their experiences of the service over the past few months, and we’ll be launching a survey soon to help gather these views

“Ultimately, we all want the service to be running as well as it can, and this review is a chance to make sure we learn from any mistakes so we can work together to make it a success.”

The review was agreed by the council’s environment and climate change committee at a meeting last month. The group will present a report back to the environment and climate change committee at a committee meeting on Wednesday 20 November 2024.

Challenges in the early stages

Vincent Masseri, general manager at Suez, told letsrecycle: “The new service in Mid-Kent has impacted almost 200,000 properties and resulted in more than 80,000 day changes for resident bin collections locally.

“Given the scale of the operation, challenges can be common in the early stages of a new contract as crews get used to new routes, trucks and technology. We apologise to all residents who have experienced disruption in recent months as a result.

“There have been significant improvements to the contract over the past few weeks and we stand ready to support the review that is taking place while we are working hard to maximise collection rates.”