Tories hit out at garden waste charge scheme in Cheshire East

Plans to introduce the charges were voted through as part of the budget in February.

Still the council has not revealed how the subscription service will work, how much residents will be charged, when the charge will be introduced or the impact it could have on the purpose-built green waste hub at Leighton Grange, which processes the collected garden and food waste.

When the Local Democracy Reporting Service asked for information last month, we were told the council was engaging with residents through its website. That page, which does not answer any of the above questions, has not been updated since May 24.

It does explain the council is introducing the charge because it has a £20m funding gap to fill because of soaring inflation and a higher demand for services, meaning it has to find alternative sources of revenue.

Cllr Stewart Gardiner (Image: Cheshire East Council)

Speaking at the recent meeting of the environment and communities committee, Knutsford councillor Stewart Gardiner said: “Certainly, in my ward, a significant number of people are not in favour of that proposal. What are the implications for the council’s finances, given that’s already been built into this year’s budget, how will we deal with that if the decision is reversed?”

He added: “I’m mindful our green waste disposal policy relates to our ability to meet our carbon neutral targets - it has knock-on effects in terms of, if we are charging people to dispose of their garden waste, what implications are there for people not doing what they asked and also for putting it in the black bins?”

He said the council might discover it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul.

“It might be there are cost implications elsewhere and I would like to have all that data in front of me,” said Cllr Gardiner.

Finance officer Tracy Baldwin said the budget had been approved in February and if any changes were made ‘further items would have to be brought to balance the budget’.

Tom Shuttleworth, director of environment and neighbourhood services, said papers detailing how the scheme would be implemented would be going to the environment committee in July.

“They are papers around implementation of those proposals rather than necessarily whether the proposal will proceed or otherwise, because we do have a budget that’s now been set and it has those proposals in them,” he said.

Cllr Tony Dean (Image: Cheshire East Council)

Knutsford councillor Tony Dean said the committee system wasn’t working correctly when a decision, like charging for garden waste collection, could be made by members of the finance sub-committee but the environment committee, which should be setting the policy for such matters, had no input.

He added a business plan must have been done at some stage because the council has quoted figures in the MTFS (medium term financial strategy).

Those figures show it aims to rake in £4m when the scheme comes into operation.

“But there are financial downsides as well as upsides and I’d like to see what assumptions have been made to come to those figures,” said Cllr Dean.

He was told the information would be available at the July meeting.

Councillors were asked to note the decision of the finance sub-committee to allocate the approved budgets environment and communities committee.

The Conservatives asked for it to be put on record they could not agree to note it as they had not voted for the budget in February.