All three tips in Bristol – including the new Hartcliffe Way recycling centre – will close two days a week and the city’s street-cleaning rounds halved amid a funding crisis. Bristol Waste needs to plug a £4million gap and is taking drastic action to cut costs, including reducing the work of fly-tip and graffiti removal teams, according to its annual business plan.
The document says the city council, which owns the company, has told the firm it must “live within its means”, which will result in some services becoming less frequent. It comes just days after councillors approved the local authority’s 2023/24 budget which includes higher charges for garden waste collections and new fees for DIY waste and replacement black bins and recycling boxes.
The business plan, which was supposed to cover the next five years and was already delayed after the interim managing director parted company with Bristol Waste in January because of ill-health, is now only for one year and will be scrutinised at a council meeting on Friday (March 3). Overview & scrutiny management board members were receiving a private briefing from bosses on Monday (February 27) ahead of Friday’s public meeting where they will be told that the local authority cannot increase the firm’s contract in line with inflation, effectively meaning a funding cut.
Read more: Bristol Waste loses third top boss in just six months – but councillors were not told
The business plan said: “This has led to some difficult decisions and a significant impact on our plans for the business. The plan is extremely challenging and there are risks to achievement.”
It said changes agreed with the council included reducing the household reuse and recycling centres’ opening hours from seven to five days a week, although this would have “minimal impact on the city” as the tips would be available to use at peak times, which suggests weekends as well as some weekdays. The plan said: “Significant changes to the street cleansing service will be required to ‘live within our means’.
“Remodelling frequency of street cleansing will lead to a reduction in the cleansing frequency of semiurban, residential and industrial areas of the city by up to half. Graffiti and fly-tip removal resources will also be reduced.
“This change will have the biggest impact on our city cleanliness and will be the first area for reinvestment when finances allow. This has been a hard decision to make.”
Bristol Waste currently removes more than 6,000 pieces of graffiti and 8,500 fly-tips each year, as well as responding to 6,250 street-cleansing requests, but the cuts will shift the focus from proactively tackling the problems to “more reactive”. The document said: “There will of course be implications for our teams and the residents of Bristol in bringing forward these changes.
“A consequence will be that resources will be reduced across services in 2023/24 and whilst every effort will be made to minimise the impact, there will inevitably be adverse effects on performance levels. If the agreed timescales for these changes are not met, each month of delay will effectively add £200,000 to £225,000 onto our cost.”
The new Hartcliffe Way tip, opened last June by mayor Marvin Rees and Broadchurch actor Joe Sims, will reduce to five opening days a week along with Days Road and Avonmouth. Bristol City Council’s cabinet is expected to sign-off the business plan on March 7.
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