New council leader defends waste policy

3:50pm Wednesday 29th October 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

I have followed with interest the press coverage relating to Chester City Council letting a new contract for the collection of household waste along with the petty and ill informed party politics of the opposition parties of Liberal Democrats and Labour.

Although it will spoil a good story, we feel it will be helpful to inform your readers of a few facts as follows;

The opposition position of imposing on residents a collection system that they, the residents, have firmly rejected is a behaviour that the Conservative Group will NOT accept.

MIKE JONES, Leader, Cheshire West and Chester Council

Chester City Council has followed an open tender process of identifying a contractor to collect waste, which it has to by law.

It is very time consuming and expensive, having taken some three years. Significant cost would be incurred if the tender process had to be restarted and would have prevented a universal system being introduced in 2012, as well as exposing the new council to significant risk of legal challenge in the courts. During the process Chester City Council consulted with residents and 70 per cent of those who responded requested weekly collection of household rubbish in preference to alternate weekly collection.

The weekly collection has the objective of delivering a recycling of waste material similar to or better than Vale Royal’s excellent scheme which achieved 40 per cent at the start, rising to 46 per cent at the end of its fourth year.

The weekly collection of waste in the Chester area will cost approximately £47 per household, this being a similar cost to the cost of waste collection in Vale Royal during 2009/10.

It should be noted the costs are similar as Chester has learned from Vale Royal and other councils and is using new technology to reduced the costs of waste collection.

The opposition position of imposing on residents a collection system that they, the residents, have firmly rejected is a behaviour that the Conservative Group will NOT accept.

We view with interest that it is the policy of the opposition parties that where an enhanced service is provided by one of the existing authorities, it should be stopped and closed down or reduced to the poorest service level.

This approach by the opposition is simply daft as it implies that the excellent service Vale Royal has invested in, such as small business support and the creation of customer service centres that perform so well in Frodsham, Northwich and Winsford should be stopped, noting these do not exist in Chester, Ellesmere Port and Neston – hence these residents will technically be paying for enhanced services in Vale Royal.

The Conservative group has the opposite approach, it is looking for best practice and identifying ways in which best practice can be spread across the other authorities as soon as we can afford to invest.

The new council’s Conservative administration is committed to bringing the three existing councils’ waste collection in to one single collection contract in 2012.

This will be done in consultation with the residents of Cheshire West and Chester. These are challenging economic times for everyone and I hope the opposition parties cease the petty party politics and instead work with the Conservative group to build a great council that we will all be very proud of.

MIKE JONES. Leader, Cheshire West and Chester Council.