Garden waste charges ‘frozen’ at £30 for 2019

Garden Waste removal service is set to resume from March 1 and will remain at £30 for 2019.

The Council’s Cabinet recently agreed on the continuation of the charging policy for 2019 and beyond and that the current cost of £30 per bin will be frozen for 2019.

The ‘opt in’ garden waste service began in April 2017 – 33,871 households subscribed to the service last year which helped to boost the cash strapped local authority coffers by more than £1m.

The ‘new’ service is also saving around £130,000 a year due to a reduction in the number of vehicles and operators required for garden waste collections.

Flintshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Countryside, Councillor Carolyn Thomas, said:

“The actual take-up marginally exceeded our financial target which means that we can potentially look into technology-based systems which offer a more efficient method of registering a bin to a property.

This will speed up the management and payment process and will remove the need to issue stickers each year. We are recommending that options for this are considered and introduced in time for the 2020 season.”

It was also recommended “after careful review” that no reduced rate will be offered to residents on benefits.

“It would be difficult to provide such a discount without passing additional costs onto other non-eligible residents and the management of such a system would be costly and time-consuming in carrying out checks.” The Council said.

For those residents who want a kerbside collection service, subscriptions are open from 30 January.

All residents will need to subscribe or re-subscribe if they want to continue collections of garden waste from 1 March this year.

Subscriptions can be online, by phone 01352 701234 or at any Connects office.

Collections will start from 1 March and have been extended to include any late leaf fall until to 15 December when Christmas collections start.

Cllr  Thomas added:

“The Council also operates five Household Recycling Centres at Mold, Buckley, Greenfield, Sandycroft and Oakenholt which receive garden waste throughout the year.

Advice and further information on home composting and waste and recycling services can be found on our website.”