The Sunday Times reports that South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils are joining other councils in putting microchips in bins. The report says that 42 Councils, covering two million households have adopted the policy. In The Daily Telegraph’s report of the story today, Shadow Local Government Minister Bob Neill says using technology […]
Economic conditions have hit recycling but North Hertfordshire District Council, are keeping up an exceptionally ambitous programme. Cllr Lynda Needham, portfolio holder for recycling and wate, reports. It is now some 15 months since we implemented a change of refuse collection and recycling. Prior to this we had collected paper, glass and organic at the […]
Never underestimate the awesome power of ConservativeHome’s Local Government section. This morning we ran a piece by John Fuller opposing Labour’s bin tax. This afternoon it emerges that the Government have abandoned the plans after not a single Council agreed to take part. It’s great to see councils finally withdrawing co-operation from Labour.
Cllr John Fuller, the leader of South Norfolk Council, says the "pay as you throw" policy is a tax for people who live in houses. About five years ago, South Norfolk Council received a grant from DEFRA for a technology trial to see whether it was practical to record how much rubbish residents threw away […]
Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has written the following letter to Conservative councillors urging them no to sign up to Labour’s bin tax Dear Colleague,Further to my email in June, I just wanted to write to update you on the Labour Government’s plans to levy new bin taxes on family homes. At […]
A Press Association survey has found considerable reluctance from Councils to take part in the Government’s pay-as-you-throw pilot. One of the reasons given is a reluctance to impose extra costs on households during a recession.
We have already published the first installment of answers to the questions you recently posed about local government reorganisation to shadow communities and local government secretary, Eric Pickles. Here is his second set of answers, covering how Conservative councils can be Conservative, local councils’ use of anti-terrorism powers to spy one people, the Conservative revival […]
Conservative-run Adur Council has told residents who had swept up the leaves in their street and bagged them up were told that they would be charged £43 for them to be removed. the good news is that the Council has now agreed to take them for free. They say there was a misunderstanding and hadn’t […]
Shadow Commuinites and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has pledged that a Conservative Government would stop bullying and penalising Councils which operate weekly refuse collection. Pickles says that under Labour the rat population has increased to 80 million due o the ant-weekly collections policy. Fly-tipping has soared. The decision on weekly collection will still rest […]
In the first big policy announcement of Conservative Party Conference, David Cameron has told the Daily Mail that a Conservative Government will find the money to allow councils to restore weekly bin collections for all households. Just over half of councils have scrapped weekly collections. The Mail notes: "The average cost of weekly collections is […]
The Sunday Times reveals that the Government is recommending a fine of £75 to £110 for families who overfill their rubbish bins. The newspaper notes that this scale of penalty would be "higher than the £80 on-the-spot fines levied by police for offences ranging from being drunk and disorderly to shoplifting". Eric Pickles told The […]
The Conservatives have found out that not a single council has volunteered for Labour’s controversial bin tax pilot scheme. Ministers have been pushing for the introduction of bin taxes based on frequency or on weight. The Labour-dominated Communities & Local Government Select Committee had said in February that it was hard to see why any […]
The law has existed for 130 years but The Telegraph reports that a household’s right to have its rubbish collected by their local authority is to be scrapped by Labour. Conservative HQ believe that the change could mean no bin collection if… "(a) the bin was put out the night before rather than on the […]
Questions tabled by the Conservatives have forced the Government to reveal the findings of a £27,000 study that warned of increased health risks from rats, flies and seagulls if rubbish collections were reduced in frequency. The report found that vermin and insects could be "encouraged into the home environment" as a result of fortnightly collections. […]
Reports in The Daily Mail and Times target Tory-controlled Plymouth council this morning for an "intrusive" questionnaire that it is considering as part of its rubbish collection service. Plymouth Conservatives are considering asking a minority of the city’s households to name an individual who will be responsible for that household’s recycling in order to make […]