Waverley district council in Surrey, which has Conservatives occupying 56 of its 57 seats, also hit out at the pseudo-micro-management being performed by Mr Pickles with regards to the debate over collection frequency.
Speaking in central London today (June 1), Mary Orton, chief executive of Waverley, said that the council would stand firmly by its alternate weekly residual waste collection scheme (AWC), which was introduced in 2006.
The comments came in the wake of mainstream media reports earlier this week that suggested that the forthcoming Waste Review will include a £100 million kitty to incentivise councils to reintroduce weekly collections. However, it is understood the money will be applicable to weekly food waste collections only (see letsrecycle.com story).
Defy
Responding to a question from John Woodruff, head of waste services at the London borough of Bromley, Ms Orton said that the council would not countenance a change due to the 650,000-a-year savings achieved under AWC and the capital costs involved in returning to weekly.
She said: It is the pseudo-micro-management of councils for a quick Daily Mail headline. The amount of money [allegedly] on offer is nowhere near enough to even scratch the surface of getting councils to go back from fortnightly to weekly collections.
A token few councils might go back [to weekly collections] in order to curry favour with the Secretary of State. For example, those in East Anglia near his home constituency might do it to curry favour. We wont be doing anything different to what we have been doing currently.
Public holidays
The council, which currently has a collection contract with waste management firm Veolia, is retendering its waste and recycling collection contract. And, Ms Orton said that AWC would remain. At present, the council is rolling out weekly food waste collections to houses in the town centre of Waverley.
Ms Orton said that the council had invited communities minister Bob Neill to visit and witness its Bank Holiday refuse collections.
Mr Neill had previously been critical of councils affected by backlogs in waste collection caused by public holidays (see letsrecycle.com story).
Shared
Ms Orton was speaking at an event co-hosted by legal firm Lawrence Graham (LG) and environmental consultancy WYG.
Also speaking at the event, Len Attrill, WYG project director, discussed getting value-for-money from council waste contracts. Mr Attrill said that the concept of sharing services was being seen as a panacea with regards to saving money on waste service but he offered a word of caution.
He said: People who see these things as a panacea dont know what they are talking about. We have worked with more than half of the councils with this cross boundary arrangement in effect and they need to have enough time to overcome the barriers that are there.
Mr Attrill added that it was important for councils to seek out expert advice such as consultants but they must not be scared to challenge the expertise they receive.
Furthermore, Mr Attrill stressed the importance of waste services to residents.
Waste services are one of 110 run by a district or borough council, or 220 if you are a unitary authority. But it is the only local authority service that every household gets every week and it is really important, he said.
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