Anger at £30 charge for lost or damaged wheelie bins
TOWN hall bosses have come under fire for charging residents a £30 fee if their wheelie bin is lost or damaged.
Irate residents have been told that from next month they will have to pay the £30 for a 240-litre bin or £25 for a smaller 140-litre unit.
Cheshire East Council says it will replace lost or stolen bins for free in the first instance but will charge if the bin disappears again within three years.
The move came after the Conservative council’s public consultation found just 34 per cent of 1,895 respondents agreed with it.
Now opposition Labour councillors are demanding the decision is scrutinised again.
Labour councillor Nick Mannion said that the borough’s most vulnerable residents will be hit hardest by the policy.
Impact
He said: “This decision will have a bigger impact on those who live in terraced streets, that are more at risk of losing their bins.
“Also if you have got a family and you have the choice to pay for a wheelie bin or dinner, you know which is going to be missed out.
“So in turn it will increase fly-tipping and that will cost the council.”
The council said that a 25 per cent concessionary rate will apply to residents on qualifying benefits, while bins damaged during waste collection will be replaced for free.
The £30 charge for a black waste bin is £5 less than proposed at the time the council’s environment and regeneration scrutiny committee slammed the policy in June.
At that meeting Tory Cllr Sarah Pochin called on the authority to scrap the proposal and look instead at the reasons why bins go missing and how it could be resolved.
She said: “The committee voted in support of the idea that our CEC [Cheshire East Council] taxpayers are entitled to a wheelie bin free of charge. Yet again the views of a scrutiny committee seem to have been ignored.”
New bins will be marked to identify the property they belong to.
The council is also advising residents to make sure their existing bins are marked up with their address to deter bin thieves.
Cllr Glen Williams, the council’s deputy cabinet member for environment, insists the charge is necessary.
He said: “The council spent £300,000 on supplying bins and a further £64,000 for the delivery and administration of bins in 2017-18.
“With an ongoing reduced budget position it is necessary to start charging for the service to provide and deliver bins to properties.
“Our new bin charging policy will also have the added benefit of encouraging residents to take greater responsibility for their bins, as well as help to reduce demand for replacements in the future.”
In July, Sunderland City Council came under pressure to scrap a £25 charge for replacing wheelie bins it had introduced.