Garden waste collection service to be discussed by Cabinet
Lancaster City Council’s Cabinet will receive an update on the introduction of a charge for the collection of garden waste when it next meets on October 4.
From January 2017 the collection of garden waste from households in the Lancaster district will become a subscription-only service.
The charge is being introduced to plug a budget black hole that will see the costs of collecting household waste boom from £2.85million to £4.14 million over the next few years.
This is as a result of losing funding from Lancashire County Council towards the recycling service, along with ongoing reductions in funding from central government.
Residents who sign up before March 31 2017 will receive the service at the discounted rate of £30 for up to a maximum of 15 months.
After this date the service will cost £37.50 for a subscription until the end of March 2018.
Cabinet will also discuss proposals to increase the charge to £40 in 2018/19 to cover the ever increasing costs of providing the green waste collection service, subject to approval during the process of setting the council’s annual budget.
Coun Brendan Hughes, Cabinet member with responsibility for Environmental Services, said: “Contrary to popular belief, council tax has only ever paid for a proportion of our costs and we’ve always relied on extra grants to run many of our services, including the collection of garden waste.
“These grants have been cut to the bone and to continue to provide the service we have had to bring in this charge to help cover our costs. The only alternative would be to stop collecting garden waste altogether.
“I have to stress that the charge is entirely discretionary so if someone doesn’t want to pay they don’t, and can take up alternatives such as home composting or visit one of the household waste recycling centres instead.
“These are difficult times and I’d like to thank people for working with the council to reduce the impact these cuts are having on our society and also their continued commitment to recycling as much of their waste as they can.”
More details on the service and how to subscribe will be issued to homes in October and November.
Last updated: 14 November 2016