York Liberal Democrats have launched a petition against Labour’s plans to introduce charging for green bin collections. It can be found here

The Council is asking residents to complete an “on line” questionaire. Click here to find it.

Remember though that it is the Labour Council that has decided to “save” £250,000 from the waste collection budget. They could – and in our view should – have looked to make the savings from other budgets such as abandoning the provision of “free” WiFi services in the City centre and cancelling the the introduction of the unnecessary 20 city wide speed limit

The background information papers pointedly fail to tell residents how much additional Landfill Tax the Authority will have to pay if, as expected, the amount of green waste put in grey bins increases. Any increased landfill payments would be passed on to all Council Taxpayers – not just those with gardens.

At last week’s Cabinet meeting the ruling Labour Group agreed to bring forward plans that could involve charging for garden waste collections (either all year round or between March and November), charges for additional garden bins, or stopping all winter collections.

City of York Council has refused to confirm how much the fees will be or what the impact will be on recycling rates and Landfill Tax. After the controversial closure of Beckfield Lane Tip last year, the Council is missing recycling targets and a report last week admitted that the authority was “underperforming” slipping to 260th in recent recycling performance tables for England. Meanwhile, missed targets mean Landfill Tax is due to reach a record £3 million this year.

In Derby, the Labour run Council are planning to charge residents £40 per year to have a garden waste bin and £20 for each additional bin, while in Newcastle 40,000 residents returned their bins after the Council introduced fees.

Cllr Ann Reid, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Environmental Services, commented:

“We fear that introducing a charge for green bins will further increase Landfill Tax charges and fly-tipping while recycling rates will fall. Labour are focussed on the short-term income generated from charging residents, but have made no budget provision for paying more Landfill Tax or for clearing up more fly-tipping.

“The move also breaks a promise to residents. When alternate weekly collections were rolled out the Council entered into a contract with residents. In exchange for a reduced grey waste collection residents would be encouraged to recycle and provided with a suitable collection regime and containers to do so. This meant that under the Lib Dem administration recycling rates increased from 12% to 43%. Charging for green waste breaks this contract and is effectively an extra tax on residents who want to do the right thing and recycle.”

NB. The Council is also planning to reduce the operating hours of the Towthorpe recycling centre and to ask all those using the Hazel Court and Towthorpe facilities to produce proof of being a York resident before being allowed free access to the sites!