I have supported our Conservative Councillors in trying to keep our weekly bin collections. I was pleased to see this press release from them:
Conservative Councillors Win Vote to Keep Weekly Bin Collections Following Petition of 1800 Residents
Wokingham Conservative Group and one of the Borough’s Independent councillors voted to retain weekly bin collections despite the Liberal Democrat/Labour Coalition administration’s plan to reduce bin collections to fortnightly.
The vote came after a debate on a petition of 1800 residents’ signatures.
The petition, presented to Council last month, reflects concerns for larger families, for people who have more waste to dispose, such as nappies, and for residents who do not have room to store rubbish.
At the Budget Council meeting in February Liberal Democrat Cllr Ian Shenton described the petition as “spurious”.
This follows a Council consultation where only 24 per cent of responders said that they liked the idea of fortnightly collections.
The Council consultation on waste did not include an option to retain the current system of weekly collections or blue bags, preventing local people from expressing a view.
Wokingham Conservative Councillors would retain weekly waste collection and make savings by enabling residents to recycle more of their household waste. The cost to the Council of disposing of recycling is significantly cheaper than that of general waste.
Despite other nearby authorities moving to fortnightly collections, previous Conservative administrations in Wokingham Borough have kept weekly waste collections for 20 years, through careful management of the Council’s finances.
Cllr Norman Jorgensen, Shadow Executive Member for the Environment said “It is clear the majority of residents wish to retain weekly waste collections. I am pleased that an Independent councillor recognised just how unpopular this policy is and has voted with us.
“The Lib Dem/Labour Coalition didn’t give residents the chance to express their views on keeping weekly bin collections. I am glad we were able to bring resident’s views to the Council despite Liberal Democrat’s attempts to discredit it as “spurious”.
“Waste collection and recycling are important universal services that everyone in the Borough relies on. This policy will not save any money in the short term. In fact, it is expected to cost £2 million to implement. And future savings are not guaranteed. Remember this is the administration who said, when they scrapped the caddy liners, that they would increase recycling, saving the Council £300k. As we predicted at the time food recycling has not increased.
“Residents are being expected to pay more for less – this is not value for money for taxpayers.”
Cllr Pauline Jorgensen, Leader of the Conservative Group, said, “This was a vote on one of the Liberal Democrat/Labour Coalition’s key policies. They have wasted months trying to force through this unpopular and flawed decision.
“The Liberal Democrats didn’t include imposing fortnightly bin collections on residents in their election literature. In fact, some members of the Liberal Democrat Executive previously campaigned to keep weekly waste collections.
“Now residents have had their views heard. I hope that this will make the Lib Dem administration think again.”
ENDS
March 24, 2023
Cat sized rats are being reported and photographed all over the country. I have seen one myself! In fact it was so big that I actually looked at it – had I known it was a rodent I never would have done so! They are chewing through the locked commercial bins in property I own.
We need efficient and frequent bin collection.
March 24, 2023
That’s all very well – but government is preparing plans to make all rubbish collection the same all over the country – with a rumoured 6 ugly bins outside every home.
They don’t want to make it more efficient – they simply want to use rubbish as another stick to beat us with.
In Kent we have plastic bags, and that system works very well, I recommend it for Wokingham – but no doubt we will all be forced down the same insane net-zero path, for no good reason!
March 24, 2023
So glad that you and our Conservative councillors are fighting to keep our weekly collections and no wheelie bins. Unfortunately according to the Wokingham News the democratic vote by our elected councillors has been trumped by the Executive Committee. What is the point of voting in your councillors if their democratic decisions can be overturned like this. It says that under the Council Constitution that decision making powers to its executive committee can be used so the debate was advisory. This is a joke. Perhaps the Constitution needs to be changed.
March 26, 2023
Afraid the LibDems have a very long history of so called regular consultation, and NOT asking the right questions, that way they think they can get the answers THEY want.
I see from the latest newsletter pushed through my door (one about every fortnight now) they are trying to fight the next election by trying to trash your service and record JR, Surely there must be some sort rules/guidance about running this sort of extended propaganda campaign before even an election date has been announced.