The borough council has also highlighted safety concerns surrounding the amenity waste service, a Saturday-only scheme that has been in place for ‘many years’.
Under the current service, refuse vehicles are placed at sites across the borough every Saturday, to which residents can take their waste rather than to the household waste recycling centres (HWRCs).
The waste service, which sees 550 tonnes of refuse collected each year, is unique among all Berkshire authorities and was put in place before the council entered a joint provision arrangement with Reading and Bracknell Forest in 1999 – known as the ‘re3 partnership’.
The service remains popular with residents, which is based on a charge per visit of £271 from Veolia which is largely subsidised by the council, although residents in some parts of the district are asked for a charge for using the service.
Contributions
The range of contributions varies between parishes and towns, and the council subsidy ranges between 100% and 20% for those who have retained the service, a provision it believes is ‘unfair’. By dropping the service, the council predicts it could save around £76,000 per year.
In addition, the council claims, the service conflicts with the new Waste (England and Wales) Regulations, which will require councils and businesses to provide technically, environmentally or economically practicable (TEEP) collections from the start of next year.
While both Veolia and the council have a duty of care to ensure that only household waste is dropped off by residents, there are concerns that the service is used for bulky and hazardous waste items such as television monitors.
At present, the council is unable to disaggregate waste delivered to the refuse vehicles into separate streams, and all 550 tonnes must therefore be landfilled.
A report submitted to the council executive reads: “The Committee recognised the desire of many residents, expressed through borough, town and parish councillors to retain a service. However, the Committee also recognised that the service is unsustainable in its current form.”
It adds: “The cessation of this service in its current form will allow the Waste Team to work with those Parish and Towns who wish to procure the service direct to try to develop an appropriate, bespoke and safe service to suit their resident’s specific needs on property within their control, subject to finding a willing contractor.”
The amenity service has also been the subject of safety concerns, with Veolia writing to the council in July 2014 highlighting risks that were not specifically dealt with by its own vehicle specific risk assessment – and stated it was concerned that the operation on many sites was ‘unsafe’.
Risks
An ensuing risk assessment carried out by the council found that better traffic management and increased staffing could help improve safety on these sites – but identified the ‘urgent’ need to stop or mitigate the service at high risk sites. The council began mitigation in October 2014, but regards future mitigations as unsustainable in the medium term.
Veolia – which receives £46,883 from the service each year – said the revenue did not meet the costs since safety concerns caused an increase in vehicle crewing and need to reposition vehicles each Saturday.
The service is due to close in February 2015, while Wokingham residents who used the amenity service will now have to visit the two jointly funded HWRCs which serve the re3 area; Smallmead in Reading and Longshot Lane in Bracknell.
Collections
Meanwhile, it is understood that there will be no change to households in Wokingham, which operates weekly commingled collections of recyclables in a black box, as well as weekly collections of residual waste in blue bin bags.
Dry recyclables are currently separated and sorted at the materials recycling facility in Smallmead, which can handle up to 58,000 tonnes collected from Wokingham, Bracknell and Reading each year.
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