Now 3 in 4 homes are hit with ‘garden tax’ to remove clippings

THREE- QUARTERS of households must now pay if they want grass cuttings collected, it has emerged.

Figures have shown that 254 of the 314 councils in England charge to collect green waste – dubbed a ‘garden tax’.

The proportion charging residents has soared in recent years from about two-thirds (62 per cent) in 2019 and fewer than half (48 per cent) in 2016.

Annual fees average £56 but a handful of councils charge as much as £100.

Some town halls make families pay for a garden waste bin.

Boston, in Lincolnshire, charges £40 to have a bin delivered, and £50 for garden waste collection. In Richmond, south-west London, garden waste collection costs £84 a year and the bins for the service are £ 36, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The fees are on top of council tax charges levied on all households to pay for services such as domestic waste collection.

Almost all local authorities are planning to increase council tax by the maximum 4.99 per cent permitted in April in an attempt to raise more money, despite receiving a £600million Government bailout. Six local authorities have gone bust since 2021 and four in ten are at risk of having to effectively declare bankruptcy over the next five years, experts say.

Tory MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘Badly-run councils are trying to squeeze money out of people in every possible way.’ He added that they are ‘now trying to penalise people for gardening’. The former Cabinet minister said: ‘It’s symptomatic of dysfunctional local governments, which always want more money.’

Fellow Tory Sir John Redwood – local government minister under John Major – said: ‘A large number of councils mismanage their finances in a dreadful way and then try to think up all sorts of ways of charging people more and raising the taxes. Councils’ expenses are out of control.’

He added: ‘They are always pleading poverty and spending money on things no one wants.’

A Local Government Association spokesman said: ‘ Public satisfaction with local waste services remains very high. It should be for individual councils with their residents to decide how to carry out waste collections locally and whether the costs of providing green waste collection should be met by all taxpayers or just those that use the additional service.’

‘Councils always plead poverty’