Declares that South Gloucestershire Council is now charging residents £36 per year for the collection of their green bins and further that a local Petition on this subject has received over 4,200 signatures.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage South Gloucestershire Council to reconsider this decision and not implement a charge for the collection of green bins.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Chris Skidmore, Official Report, 29 April 2014; Vol. 579, c. 792.]
[P001344]
Observations from the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government; received 3 June 2014:
Prevailing legislation allows for councils to charge for discretionary services, such as the collection of garden waste. However, Ministers believe that councils should not be introducing stealth taxes by imposing new charges on local residents. Instead, councils should be making sensible savings by better procurement, more joint working and cutting fraud, in order to protect frontline services and keeping council tax and charges down. A range of practical ways to cut costs is outlined in the Department’s best practice guide, “50 ways to save”.
The Secretary of State endorses the Petitioners’ suggestion that the council reconsider its actions in imposing these new charges.
Such charges also threaten to increase fly-tipping, increasing clean-up costs for the council and harming the environment. Indeed, recent research by the University of Kent has found that the adequacy of garden waste collection was significantly related to fly-tipping behaviour. Respondents reporting that garden waste collection was not adequate were more likely to have admitted to fly-tipping compared to respondents reporting that this service was adequate for their household needs.
As outlined in the answer of 14 May 2014, Official Report, column 646W, this Government have taken a series of steps to work with councils to support regular and comprehensive rubbish and recycling collections, as well as the stop the imposition of bin taxes and backdoor charges on the collection of residual waste.