Councillors reject call to scrap Peterborough’s brown bin charges in heated debate

A proposal to do away with brown bin charges will cost taxpayers money, and not save it, the Full council meeting heard.
The proposal from Cllr Chris Wiggin suggested the council should review the cost of one option against the other – either keeping the brown bin service, or scrapping the charge being made, and whichever option is the cheaper, should be implemented.
Speaking to members at the online meeting (December 9) Cllr David Seaton said: “Income from brown bins only covers the cost of that service, and we would lose £1.2m of income, we would incur capital costs of £0.8m, and may see reduced home-composting.

“If garden waste in black bins reduced to previous levels, gating costs could reduce by £400k plus some much smaller benefits from fly-tipping and other recycling.

“So, the cost of Cllr Wiggin’s proposal would be an increase of £800k annually, plus capital costs – and that is money that would have to be found from cuts to other services, with no suggestion as to how that could be achieved.

“Secondly, when the brown bin charge was introduced the case was strongly made that many people composted or did not have a garden.

“Cllr Wiggin may be interested to know that only one-in-four homes in my ward of Hampton uses the brown bin. His proposal would therefore ask 75 per cent of Hampton residents to effectively fund a service they don’t use.

“It doesn’t balance a budget, but may look good on an election leaflet.”

Cllr Wiggin replied: “While I note with interest some of the points raised by Cllr Seaton, the rate of recycling in Peterborough remains shockingly low compared to our neighbouring local authorities and even to levels achieved by this city more than a decade ago.

“One of the reasons that I’ve made this proposal to remove the brown bin charge is that we need to get those recycling rates up and contributing to the vision that the Conservative administration agreed to when it declared a climate emergency.

“We are now well below the national average for recycling and I’m beginning to wonder why it is that in the twenty years this administration has been in power it has done nothing to improve those figures?”

Cllr Wayne Fitzgerald added: “I will not be supporting Cllr Wiggin’s proposal because it is nonsensical.

“Cllr Wiggin , it’s spectacularly irresponsible of you to come here tonight and suggest that we incur an £800k expense accordingly.

“We all want to drive up recycling rates, but what you propose simply won’t do this by inflicting the cost of a service on everybody.

“So, I’m going to make sure that residents in Hampton Vale know exactly where you stand in terms of increasing the costs to them on a weekly or annual basis, because you don’t give a jot about Hampton Vale, you’re an opportunist who is electioneering here with this – its not about brown bins and green energy.

“The fact of the matter is you have done no homework whatsoever, you’ve made no attempt to speak to Cllr Marco Cereste and I know for a fact that you’ve not spoken to any officers whatsoever about the implications of how the waste system works in this city, you have no idea what it costs to treat the waste in black bins or the cost of what goes into the recycling centre.

“I put this to you as a challenge, Cllr Wiggin: we, the Conservatives, will guarantee to completely scrap the brown bin charge, if you can mitigate the costs entirely, increase recycling rates and make it a good idea for everybody.”

The proposal from Cllr Wiggin was voted upon, the result was: For 12, Against 29 and Abstain 17 – so the proposal was defeated.