Dates confirmed for winter suspension of garden waste collection

bins

Having recently undertaken a consultation on the proposed winter shut down for 2014/15, Cheshire East Council has confirmed the dates for this year's suspension of the green bin collections.

Following an outcry from local residents over the decision to shut down the garden waste collection service for 4 months last winter, Cheshire East Council has decided to reduce the length of the suspension for this coming winter.

Councillor David Topping, Cabinet member in charge of the environment, said: "We can confirm that this year's winter suspension, following a public consultation, has been put back to the December 5th, 2014. This means that the length of the suspension has been reduced, so that our service will restart on Feb 16, 2015.

"Whichever week the collection falls, there will be no more than 12 weeks between the last collection in 2014, and the first collection in 2015.

"Each resident will receive a bin sticker which will give the dates for the start and finish of the suspension collection of that particular residential area.

"This information is also available on the Cheshire East Council website for each postcode.

"It should be noted, however, that in the event of extreme weather conditions we may also be unable to undertake the scheduled bin collection."

Last winter the Council suspended the service from 18th November 2013 to 14th March 2014, in a bid to save the authority more than £1m over the next four years. The previous year the Council stopped the fortnightly collection of green bins for a two month period.

The Council subsequently acknowledged that errors had been made and launched the consultation in July so they could "get it right for this year for our residents".

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting in March, Councillor David Topping, Cheshire East Council Cabinet member in charge of the environment, said "We didn't want to introduce charges for the collection of green waste, yet we are committed to saving £2.5m from the budget so we had to make a decision, we'd already got 2 months from previous years of not collecting green waste so we decided to extend it."

Cllr Topping continued "We did not want to charge, a lot of Councils are actually starting to charge for green waste collection, we do not want to go down that route. What I can say is that we learned a lot from this period.

"We did get the dates wrong, and we weren't helped by the weather as well, the winds and so on. The leaves did not start to fall until the end of November so that did not help us either, but nevertheless we went ahead."

Tags:
Garden Waste Collection, Green Bins
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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

DELETED ACCOUNT
Tuesday 19th August 2014 at 12:36 pm
So our Council are now threatening us - either put up with a suspension of green bin collection for 3 months or we will charge. Where can the authentic results of the survey be found please Councillor Tipping?
Sally Hoare
Tuesday 19th August 2014 at 3:19 pm
I personally think it is very sensible to suspend this collection at a time when it is little used.
I did take part in the survey, so I am pleased that our council are listening to us.
Keith Harris
Tuesday 19th August 2014 at 7:24 pm
I would love to view the raw data from the survey, as I would suspect that the majority of those residents taking part, were also gardeners. Being gardeners, they will probably know that Winter is when the cutting back takes place. So I'm sure that they will have said the service should not be suspended at all! If nobody puts their bin out then rounds will be quicker. Would that save money? I agree that the 'if you don't let us do this.... then we charge!!!..... ha,ha haaaar' sounds like a bit of a threat.
Bob Bracegirdle
Tuesday 19th August 2014 at 11:54 pm
Hmm. Here in Leicestershire garden waste us collected every two weeks all year. Madness to have a suspension as there always leaves etc to fill the bib all through the winter. Mind you, we pay for it, but we don't mind as the service is good. What is the matter with Cheshire that they cannot get it right?
Stuart Redgard
Wednesday 20th August 2014 at 2:06 am
Jackie / Keith

I suggest you make a freedom of information request to Cheshire East asking for the data. To do so go to the following site

http://bit.ly/1yZgerH
DELETED ACCOUNT
Wednesday 20th August 2014 at 7:38 am
Bob - the men who collect the green bins and household waste are excellent. It is just their leaders who are the problem. The questionnaire for garden waste was designed in such way that you could not say all year round collection - you had to take the trouble to actually write in, "all year round collection". In other words, they were going to reduce the number of collections in the Winter regardless of what people said.
Nigel Slater
Wednesday 20th August 2014 at 11:37 am
Just chuck it on Stanley Green, if it's ok for the 'travellers' to throw rubbish there it's ok for everyone else surely.....
Dave Cash
Thursday 21st August 2014 at 1:34 am
A reasonable compromise, depending on when the ash leaves finally fall.
Perhaps CEC will use the fuel saved for road/gully sweepers to clear the fallen leaves over those 3 months and prevent highway drains getting blocked. There are still rotting leaves on the roads from last autumn!
Pete Taylor
Thursday 21st August 2014 at 4:01 pm
The results of the survey have been on the CEC website for a while; one just needs to know where to look. ;-)
http://bit.ly/1vmp8iZ
DELETED ACCOUNT
Thursday 21st August 2014 at 8:33 pm
Thanks for that Pete. Look at the responses and how they followed the format of the questionnaire. Proves my point that it was constructed in such a way as to ensure they got what they wanted.
Mark Goldsmith
Saturday 23rd August 2014 at 5:23 pm
I don't mind a shut down as I rarely need to use it during these months.

However, I agree with Jackie that the survey is massively biased towards the outcome the council wanted. So what is the point of this? The cost of this pointless survey could have funded another week of collections.
Dave Cash
Sunday 24th August 2014 at 12:45 am
Mark, strictly speaking it was a public CEC consultation, not a market research survey. Yes, the questions may have been biased, but there was opportunity for additional comments. More than CEC sought last year!re
Whilst it is regrettable that responses favour on-line responses. it is a credit to this website, and others, to publicise the CEC consultation.
DELETED ACCOUNT
Monday 25th August 2014 at 4:39 pm
Dave you are looking at Cheshire East with rose - tinted spectacles. They had to have a consultation because they were publically humilated in a report by the Ombudsman on the issue.
Dave Cash
Tuesday 26th August 2014 at 1:52 am
Jackie, my glasses are 100% clear & un-tinted.
With a public consultation, the question(s) posed are at discretion of the questioner and not subject to the constraints imposed by the market research society.
In this instance most question options allowed respondents to make additional comments.
Since it's inception, many CEC decisions have been humiliated by higher Authority, in particular the Lyme Green fiasco, when the CEC response was to publish a heavily re-dacted report to protect some Cllrs and Officers.
CEC elections are due in 2015. Choose wisely.