Looking Forward…

This is the time of year when local authorities set their budgets and strategy.  We are no different and our Council meets on 26th February to finalize its budget for 2008/09 and its strategy for the next five years.

The Council will have a net expenditure of £12.1 million in 2008/09.  Most of that money comes from Government grant and the rest from Council tax and other income sources. Council tax increases for the Wychavon District Council services will be limited to 2.5% for the 8th year running. New investment is planned for affordable housing, waste collection and recycling services, town centre cleaning, community safety and CCTV. 

Part of the council’s plans for the coming year also includes a first time buyer’s scheme on affordable housing.  Flood alleviation schemes in Harvington and North Littleton will be progressed together with feasibility studies for schemes at Bishampton, Tibberton and Queenmead in Bredon. An extra £30k for the next 3 years in sport coaching for young people is proposed.

Our Priorities

There are 5 themes in the new council strategy with promises being made on each. You can view these on the Wychavon Blog.

It is always difficult to select the top priorities where money and resources should be focused but the following are the ones that have emerged from consultation and research.

Reduce crime and the fear of crime – it isn’t just the role of the police to deal with this. Councils have a strong role in providing reassurance and helping vulnerable people. For instance next year we propose to extend our safe and sound security scheme for residents, carry on with our valued community warden service, work in schools with anti bullying campaigns and get more mobile CCTV usage to respond to particular issues.

Minimize waste and increase recycling – this is now a big national issue and the pressure to ensure that land filling is minimized is growing year on year. A new alternate weekly collection service will be rolled out later in the year. In April, a new opt in chargeable garden waste service for 7500 homes will be available for those who want it (on a first come first served basis). We want to reach at least 28% recycling rate next year. This year we have achieved 22%

Balance new development with protecting the districts natural and built environment – many residents are already aware of the pressures the County is under to accept a large amount of growth in the future. Next year we will publish the preferred options for the new plan for the area (South Worcs Core Strategy). This will show where development is likely to take place over the next few years.

Contribute to reducing the incidences of coronary heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity – again this is not a topic one would automatically associate with a Council – you would normally consider this to be the domain of the NHS. However, councils are now expected to do their bit to help with this agenda while still recognizing it is the core activity of the NHS. For instance we have set a target next year to increase use of our leisure centers and to do exercise referral schemes i.e.  Work with GPs’ to get patients into a form of exercise if that would be beneficial.

Improve facilities for young people – this is always an area where public consultation says we should do more. We want to focus on activities in rural areas next year.

Increase availability of affordable, decent housing – we don’t have a housing stock and we work with housing Associations’ to deliver new affordable housing. We have set a target next year of at least 40 new units. We also want to pilot a first time buyer’s scheme which we intend to lead on ourselves.

Provide high performing services that meet customer needs – this priority is to ensure we continue to get our core business performing at a high standard. We know we can do more in terms of customer care and this is our focus next year.

A full cycle completed…

Saturday 13 October.

The vehicle arrives to collect the recycling wheelie bin mid morning. The bin is full of mixed recycling material and we have now completed a full cycle i.e. an alternate weekly collection of both recycling and residual waste.

Our family’s verdict is that the system works well. For a large family we needed the large size bins as supplied. For both collections we had full bins but did not exceed the capacity of the bin.

We are continuing the trial to the end of the month, but this household is now a supporter of the AWC system. In fact I don’t think we will want to go back to the current system!

The first collection…

Saturday 6th October and 2 weeks into the trial! The refuse vehicle arrives to collect the residual waste bin. It has 2 weeks waste in it and it is full. We would not have been able to cope with anything less than the 240 litre bin with our family size. What the trial has starkly brought home to us is the number of materials and packages that cannot be recycled at the present time. The bin was easy to manoeuvre even though it was full.

We have another week before the comingled recycling bin is collected and it is getting quite full. I expect we will completely fill it by the end of the week. We would probably have been regarded as an average family in terms of recycling efforts beforehand but the trial has most definitely focused our minds as to what can and can’t be recycled.

Wheelie Bin Trial

Last Friday two shiny new wheelie bins turned up at my house. Kindly leant to us from one of our neighbouring Councils, they arrived together with a 3-page instruction leaflet on how to carry out the trial!

So I’m part of the experiment to see what it’s like to live with a different waste service. Because we as a council have to make a big decision on the future of our waste service  A hot issue locally and nationally.

To help us make the decision on whether we stick with the what we’ve got or move to the wheelie bins we thought members and managers should  to try it out first.

To recap we are set to make a big decision at the end of October on how we collect your waste. The current service which we provide is a weekly collection of black sacks together with an alternate weekly collection of recycling sacks (the purple sack for paper and the clear sack for cans and plastic bottles). We also provide a green box for a glass collection every other week. One option we are looking at is to retain this service. The only change we would wish to make under this option is to extend the recycling service to all our households (we reach 94% of households at present).

The other main option is to consider the introduction of an alternate weekly collection service. To do this, wheelie bins would be used and the service would operate one week residual waste collected from one wheelie bin and the next week the recycling collected from another wheelie bin. Unlike the sack based service, householders wouldn’t need to separate the recycling and all material to be recycled would be put in the one bin.

The Council’s Leader, Paul Middlebrough suggested Councillors could trial the wheelie bin system before reaching a decision at the end of October.  So they could be better informed about the pros and cons of the service. Myself and other colleagues also volunteered . In particular I was keen to see how it would work in practice for a larger family – I have a 6 person household with 4 children including two teenagers.

We started the system on Saturday 22nd September. The first thing we did was put the bins in a suitable location to the side of the house. After reading the instructions my wife noticed that the only difference in terms of recycling products that can’t be put in the recycling bin is textiles.

Now well into the first week and the recycling bin is filling up! We compost vegetable and fruit material but cooked food is put in the residual bin. At the moment, we prefer putting the residual waste bagged up before it goes in the bin reducing the chance of smells. One additional bonus we have is that our dog is unable to attack the recycling sacks anymore!