Agenda item

A Member expressed the view this was a case of ‘use it or lose it’ and consequently the service had now been lost.

Whilst the Chairman expressed some sympathy with this view, he felt that not enough work was being done by the Planning Department to put more onus on developers to provide adequate recycling facilities. The Chairman was concerned that unless the Council could achieve a different outcome, then the Council’s recycling rates would decline. 

The Portfolio Holder said that the Council was getting advice from ‘WRAP’ (Waste and Resources Action Programme) to clarify what could be achieved in line with current planning law. LBB needed to make it clear what the Council expected from developers. The Portfolio Holder had requested that officers make it clear to developers that adequate waste and recycling points were required.

The Assistant Director for Environment mentioned that a paper was being looked at in Parliament next year concerning these matters and so it was likely that subsequently, a report would be presented to the ECS PDS Committee. 

The Director for Environment and Community Services stated that he had spoken with the Chief Planner concerning this issue. His aim was to get a round table of officers together so that the Planning Team would be fully aware of the concerns in this area.

A Member commented that residents in flats were paying council tax and so were paying for a service. She felt there had been a lack of communication to explain to homeowners what they could do. She felt it had not been made clear enough about where they could put their recycling and waste. She expressed the view that it looked like the project had been badly managed. She felt that more needed to be done to work out what had gone wrong so that the pilot would not turn out to be a complete waste of money. It was important to find out what the barrier or barriers were to the successful implementation of the pilot scheme and she suspected it lay in the area of poor communication.

A Member responded that officers did go door to door to publicise the pilot and that possibly what may be required was a sort of communal type of bin system; however in his view the current scheme was dead and something else had to be looked at.

The Assistant Director for Environment said that the Council had tried its best to engage.

A Member reiterated her view that the Council needed to get more from the pilot scheme.

The Chairman concluded the discussion by saying that it was great and we can't always be successful.

RESOLVED that:

1) The Portfolio Holder agreed to cease the footway recycling collection service pilot and that the cessation of the pilot be communicated; also that the locations of the nearest recycling sites be communicated to all households in the pilot areas. 

2) The Portfolio Holder agreed that alternative options for recycling provision be considered for Chatsworth Parade.