The garden waste collection service will be re-instated next week following a four month suspension.
Cheshire East will start collecting green bins again from Monday, 17th March.
The Council stopped the garden waste collections between 18th November 2013 and 14th March 2014 in a bid to save the authority more than £1m over the next four years.
Speaking at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, 4th March, Councillor David Topping, Cheshire East Council Cabinet member in charge of the environment, said "It was a strategic decision based on alternative delivery options and it avoided importantly the need to introduce charges for the collection of green waste."
He added "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 realised there would be a reputation issue and it would not be popular with everybody but as I have said before it did affect the least number of people for only a specific period of time. So it was thought to be the best decision available to us at the time.
"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."
He added "There will be a review when this period finishes and that will be published and go out to consultation as well so the lessons we have learnt from this, particularly on dates, can be built into this decision for the coming year."
Updated: 3.30pm 14th March - I noticed lots of people had put their green bins out today. If your collection day is a Friday then the first green bin collection will be in two weeks on 28th March.
What do you think about the Council suspending the green waste collection for 4 months? Did you manage OK without the service, or not? Would you be happy to pay for this service? Share your views via the comment box below.
Comments
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The CE reminder card for Christmas & New Year collections, clearly states "There will be no garden waste collections between 18 Nov 2013 and 14 March 2014"
Bin collections are alternate weeks Mon-Fri so I assume the first green bin collection for Moor La route will be Fri 28th March
For those equally confused, the CEC waste & recycling web page indicates green bins will be emptied on the same day as the grey (other waste recyclable) bins for next 12 months.
This token cost-cutting sham has taken away this valuable service just as many of us needed it most for Autumn, Christmas holiday and first Spring garden clean up. So much for public service.