Below is a briefing from Council Officers on the issue:

In February this year the Council agreed to introduce an annual £25 charge per brown bin to collect garden waste as part of the budget proposals. It was also agreed to increase how often the bin is emptied from once every three weeks to once every two weeks all year round and to change working patterns for waste crews to four days a week for the kerbside collection services.

The new garden waste service will start on 8 October. This will allow:

• the service to align with the new four-day week working pattern
• allow us to minimise the number of times we need to contact residents about changes to their services
• provide sufficient time for
  • residents to register and pay for the service
  • new collection routes to be built and calendars created.

Residents will be able to sign up for the new service from 18 June – 22 July. The registration period will be supported by an awareness campaign and we will be writing to residents to inform them of the changes and what they need to do as part of the campaign.

Residents will continue to receive free collections throughout the summer until 5 October.

The service expects to meet the proposed budget saving.

A further briefing will be issued next week and information for residents is available on our website.