Cost of extra bin more than doubles

Earlier this month Audlem Online received an email from disgruntled parishioner, Sue Laughton, who objected to the charge she was being asked to pay for the collection of her additional brown bin. 

She wrote: “We have just received notification of the cost of our extra brown bin (we have a reasonable sized garden so need 2 brown bins). The cost has increased from £20.50 to £43.00 for the year – this is an outrageous increase!

"We all know that the councils are strapped for cash and we don’t mind paying a bit extra but to more than double the price is really awful. We will of course have to pay it but we wondered if there was anyway the Parish Council could take this up with Cheshire East? Or whether other people have complained etc.”

This issue was then taken up by Parish Councillors Phillip Johnson and Pam Seddon who contacted Rachel Bailey (Audlem’s representative at Cheshire East) and the Cheshire East waste recycling office.

Rachel Bailey confirmed that the charge was correct and in a letter addressed to Phillip Johnson, dated 9 August, Ray Skipp (Cheshire East’s Waste and Recycling Manager) wrote:

“I can confirm that the decision to increase the charge to its current level was taken by the Strategic Director for Places following informal consultation with the Cabinet Member for Environment, Councillor Rod Menlove, Scrutiny of Environmental Services and Charges and endorsement through to Full Council  in February 2011 of the 2011-12 budget. 

"The previous charge of £20.50 in no way covered the costs of providing the service and the back office administration that is needed to maintain it whereas the new charge of £43 does.  The charge of £43 now covers the fortnightly collection of the materials and the administration of the service.

“In broad terms, the annual charge of £43 is split as follows: 

• Operational overheads  – £3


• Administration of annual contract – £20


• Purchase, delivery, repair , replacement and disposal of the container based on an assumed 10 year life – £5


• Marginal cost of collection – £15”

He also hinted that at some point in the future a charge might be made for the standard collection service for garden waste when he said:

“In terms of the standard collection service for garden waste the Council took a decision not to make that charge when the current Council was formed on 1 April 2009.  However, it retains the option of doing so should the policy decision be changed at some point in the future. 

"However, for additional containers there has always been a charge but until now it did not cover the cost of collection and the associated functions that enable the Council to administer the service as described above.”

Finally, in answer to a query from Councillors Seddon and Johnson about the number of garden waste bins collected in the Cheshire East, spokesman Ray Skipp said:

“If we assume that for the standard service each household has a garden bin then we probably empty somewhere in the region of 165,000 bins. Of those just over 1,600 have additional bins but the number of these at each property does vary.

Typically, households would have one additional bin but I do believe we have a few larger properties with many more than that.”

Two major issues arise from this correspondence:

• Is the charge of £43 for each additional bin really justified?   


• We need a detailed breakdown of everything that is covered under each of the headings which add up to the £43 annual cost, as listed in Ray Skipp’s letter.

This issue will be raised at the next Parish Council meeting on Monday 5 September.

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