Shropshire councillors say residents ‘let down’ over food waste collections
A Shropshire councillor says public trust has been badly damaged by delays to restarting food waste collections.
All local authorities in England, including Shropshire Council, were required to introduce weekly food waste collections from the beginning of this month under the Government’s Simpler Recycling legislation.
The law is designed to standardise recycling services across the country.
However, Shropshire is among at least 57 councils that have missed the deadline.
The authority says that while the Government has provided just over £3.6 million for vehicles, food waste bins and short-term transition costs such as communications and project management, it has not received the ongoing revenue funding needed to run a weekly food waste service.
Council bosses argue that introducing weekly food waste collections now would pose a “significant financial risk” at a time when the authority is already under “unprecedented” budget pressure.
At a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday (April 15), councillors noted a report setting out the council’s position. It explains that Shropshire’s existing Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract with waste contractor Veolia is “complex”, and that negotiations would be needed to change current arrangements.
The council says it will apply for a retrospective transition under the Environment Act to protect itself if it cannot close the budget gap or resolve capacity issues.
This would allow it to delay bringing in weekly food waste collections until the current PFI contract ends in 2039.
Green councillor Duncan Kerr said:
“It’s very serious and the damage is already done because it gives a message out there to community that we no care. We have stopped this waste from being collected and we have got no plans.”
He said people are doing their bit by sorting recycling, but “the council has let the community down in this respect and it will take a long time to rebuild that trust and confidence”.
Councillor Kerr warned that failing to collect food waste harms the climate:
“Methane is a very, very serious problem and we need to tackle this and this was a very effective way.”
He said it would cost about £3.8 million a year to run weekly collections and claimed “the government’s not providing that sort of figure at all”.
Reform party leader for Shropshire, Dawn Husemann said the key problem is running costs:
“The government haven’t given Shropshire Council the funding that it needs to fund the ongoing revenue costs of providing this service. We’ve got ring-fenced capital expenditure so we can buy the vehicles, but we can’t afford to actually physically run the service.”
She said Shropshire had also been hit by wider funding cuts:
“They’d actually cut our funding… they particularly removed the impact of rurality, which is, I think it’s, well, it’s over 13 million and you can imagine it’s a lot more expensive to collect waste in an enormous rural county like Shropshire.”
Councillor Husemann said discussions are ongoing with contractor Veolia:
“If there’s a genuine desire to find solutions, things can and do get sorted out… We can’t be waiting till 2039.”
We have contacted Shropshire Council for a comment.