Black bin collections could be reduced to just once a month and garden waste fees hiked from £30 to as much as £75 under controversial plans by South Gloucestershire Council. Opposition Tories have branded the proposals, which include new charges for certain types of waste such as tyres and plasterboard at the district’s tips, as “crazy and irresponsible”.
The new Lib Dem/Labour coalition running the local authority has hit back, calling the criticism “astonishing and rather cynical” as work on a new waste contract was “largely done by their previous Conservative administration”. Changes to how the service is run are needed because South Gloucestershire Council’s 25-year Private Finance Initiative (PFI) with Suez ends in July 2025.
Officers have assessed four options to replace it but every one means a massive funding shortfall, with the cheapest costing £330million over 10 years where bin collections are outsourced to a private operator while recycling centres and other work are brought back in-house. This requires more than 50 extra council staff and, because of budget savings targets and the fact that the current £3.1million annual grant from Defra will be lost, would leave the council having to find an extra £4.7million a year to run the service, so charges are set to be increased.
