This morning we received a notice from Lichfield District council that from 1/1/2018 if we want our Garden waste collected we will have to pay £36.00 per year. The amount isn’t excessive but I have a big problem with how this has been introduced without any discussion and an assumption has been made that households will pay the fee as it is troublesome to take the waste to the tip ourselves.
I believe it is the thin end of the wedge as if this is accepted there will be an assumption next that general waste and plastics etc can also be charged for without any dissension.
Fuckers.
Any other council adopting this stance?
Stealth Tax
by 84 Comments
Reading Council also charge for Green Bin collections too.
One off charge of £60 to buy your bin (unless you already had one) and the £30 a year for fortnightly collections in spring, summer and autumn.
For that you get a sticker for your bin to ensure collection.
They also run a thing where all households in the area get a windscreen sticker for the car allowing entry to the tip.
Turn up without it, and it’s prove your address, pay a surcharge or sod off.
The council border is 100 yards up the road.
Those who live on the wrong side of the tracks are faced with a 30 mile round trip to an alternative (non Reading council) refuse centre.
You’ve got a bargain Steve. Adur council charge us £70 per year.
Friends of mine in Somerset pay various spurious charges just to use the local tip.
The problem I have with it is that my understanding is that councils are restricted by Central Government about how much they can increase council tax by. This to my mind is a convenient way of bypassing that restriction.
I suppose it depends on whether you see it as raising council tax or plugging a gap in funding for things like social care. Down here, in God’s waiting room, we are swamped with elderly people needing care and insufficient funding.
“Down here, in God’s waiting room” is no way to refer to the Afterword.
Accurate though
I’m still waiting for The Universal Creator to give us a definitive ruling on the CD vs. Vinyl conundrum. I’m convinced he/she/it’s a lurker here.
Our council provides one separate communal Kitchen & Garden Waste bin (a specially-marked standard wheelie bin) for every pair of large Mixed Recycling hoppers. One set of bins for each pair of blocks of flats. Anything that won’t fit in it must either be taken personally to the waste site or else collected by arrangement with the council and a fee paid.
Commercial vehicles are not permitted to unload at the waste site except on the “Trade” side, where a fee is payable unless you have and display a permit.
South Glos have been doing it for a year or so now. They’ve also been cutting back staffed library hours and replacing them with “open access” where you can get into the closed library by swiping your card so you can use the facilities without any librarians being present. Except that in my local library, part of it remains inaccessible behind a shutter. The part with the books in. Well done all.
Yep, S GLOS are doing the number plate recognition thing at the tip, er, sorry, at the “Sort it!” facility too. And they’ve binned (heh) our Mobile Library service. Add that to the fact that our allotted community police officer has set foot in the village twice in two years, and you can see we are well served for our Council Tax payments.
We’re lucky in Barnet council. They don’t charge us, but then they do bugger all, the pavements are invariably dirtier after the bin collectors have been and gone and will leave bins half empty if the rubbish is hard to get out (i.e: involving an ever so slight shake of the bins). Very remiss of Barnet not to charge us, look forward to this next year and the justification for it.
Well, I am a councillor down in Crawley. We charge for green waste collection here, and have done for ages. I think it is about fifty quid but not sure as I only have a postage stamp sized garden and live 100 metres from the tip.
I think it is to do with which services are a legal obligation and which are not. With the govt settlement grant going down every year, to be completely phased out in a few years we have to choose between not doing the optional stuff or to charge for it. Doing it free isn’t an option any more.
The green waste is actually oversubscribed here and we are talking about getting a new truck to be able to expand. On the bright side we do still manage to collect household waste weekly when three quarters of councils have gone to fortnightly collections.
Same here in Brisbane, at least if you want your own bin and have it collected. (The bins aren’t cheap, either.) We get half a dozen vouchers on the rates though, both for green waste and landfill. But most of our green waste goes in the compost, or failing that in the landfill bin…
@SteveT, why don’t you get the gardener to fill his pockets with hedge & grass cuttings to take home at the end of his shift to save you the cost of this ‘stealth tax’.
Like The Great Escape?
Well if it really does cost that amount to collect garden waste then I don’t think I’m getting value for money. I probably put our small brown (garden waste) bin out 10 – 15 times a year and it’s probably about half full so I could easily cut it down further. Surely garden waste, for most households, is essentially the result of a hobby, isn’t it reasonable for those wanting the service to pay a bit extra? Having said that, I really don’t understand the council funding priorities, between us, my wife and I get pretty much a free MP3 album a week (10 tracks) to download from the library, I’m not sure how they can justify that when they’re making cuts elsewhere.
@Johnw so garden waste is a result of a hobby? What we supposed to do – let the garden become a jungle?
I am thinking of getting a wheelbarrow and dumping it into the lane.
See how they like that.
Well yes, for most people, gardening is a hobby. We don’t like gardening so we’ve got rid of everything except grass – it was a lot of work to pull up all the plants the previous residents had planted but it was a one off. That means no weeding and relatively low garden waste. When we bite the bullet and get astroturf, the only garden waste we’ll have is the leaves from the trees in the road.
That’s really sad.
What is?
We did exactly the opposite – dug up most of the grass and planted, well, plants. A lot of work, but a lot more interesting (and productive) than mowing the lawn.
Here too. Presumably, john isn’t familiar with Big Yellow Taxi. Or maybe he just likes concrete.
I’d rather have concrete than flower beds. I think it generally looks neater. I guess I’m lucky that what I prefer to look at also happens to be low maintenance.
“flower beds”? FFS you have a strange concept of gardening.
Flowers are for poofs. What you want is some nice flat concrete with a few broken down cars for the kids to play with.
And, if you get any weeds sprouting through the concrete, an old mattress, fridge or washing machine (aka ‘water feature’) will cover it up a treat.
A dog on a string, or a starving cat with 60% fur coverage and a face like Mackenzie Crook, makes an attractive addition to these kinds of landscaping features. Uncollected turds optional but encouraged.
Seems like a pretty good tax to me. It only applies to those with gardens, and the bigger the garden the more likely you are to pay it (because otherwise you’ll be down the dump every fortnight.) It’s a direct levy payable only by those who use the service it relates to, and in most cases those households can afford it. More of this sort of thing please.
Not having a go as I can see your point, and we pay £30 for ours but, – but surely the bigger the garden the more likely you are to have a gardener who will remove the waste as part of the service?
In which case you’re paying for it’s disposal.
Exactly. I was worried I hadn’t made myself clear. Thank you 🙏
As I say, people who don’t use the service don’t pay for it. Principles of taxation, innit?
I don’t have children. I therefore expect to get back that proportion of my income tax that pays for schools and nurseries.
Come to think if it, I’m not sure I should be paying for the police when there’s a perfectly good local militia.
Hey, neither do I. But like you I know the difference between education, health, security and housing on one hand and maintenance of privately-owned land on the other.
But that’s bs @chiz.
Our council tax includes for street lighting except that there isn’t any in our lane.
The letter accompanying the notice of costs clearly states it is as a result of Central Government cuts. As was alluded elsewhere this was never mentioned at any election – local or national. If you think this is okay that’s fine – I thought I lived in a democracy where such things are voted on not railroaded through without any discussion. As I said in the original post the amount is not the issue the principle is.
However it is a fait accompli and it would appear no-one has any say in the matter.
This is modern Britain.
Central government cuts in funding to councils are certainly announced in manifestos. And people still vote for them.
I’m guessing, Steve, that there is street lighting somewhere in your council area? Presumably you don’t stay at home all the time after dark…
Plus, not every single thing that public money is spent on gets itemised in manifestos. We have a representative democracy, not a direct one. If Tories/Labour/LibDems control the council, the council is going to spend money in a discretionary fashion based on the general principles outlined in their election materials.
And the fundamental principle of taxation isn’t individual fee-for-service. It’s for services which you might not use, to fund others which you might, and vice versa. In an era of LA cuts, I don’t blame councils for introducing a very small levy on a luxury in order to boost their coffers for the important stuff.
If someone feels v. strongly that they don’t want to pay for garden waste collection, the answer seems pretty simple to me: don’t. My council has always charged £35 for this service, and I’m happy to pay it. I’m also happy to pay for my parking permit outside my house, because I value being able to park there and for others to be barred from doing so. I realise that the permit isn’t provided at cost (because cost would be about 50p to print the thing and pay off the signage money) but I’m happy to pay the £150 or whatever it is a year because 600 yards from my door are people in social housing whose rent is maybe just a bit cheaper because I do.
If there’s a referendum on whether your lane should get a street light… count me in. We could organise a march, but no-one would see us.
All of the local authority houses (ex) in the village have decent sized gardens, as do the smaller number of retirement bungalows and the three sheltered houses run by a Housing Association for those in dire need. Is it also fair that all of these people are forced to choose between struggling to ram unwanted biomass into their black bin once a fortnight or letting their place return to nature?
I said ‘in most cases’. Nothing’s ever entirely fair. Council tax bands are pretty crude, for example. But the less well off households you mention will hopefully benefit from other services which won’t now get cut. SteveT’s 70p a week is an investment in those.
70p is a meal for a mum and two kids, at least one day a week.
..and hopefully they’ll get help with that, because Steve is now paying for his waste.
The odd thing is that the Council provided the bins. If you don’t want the service you can’t give the bin back.
So playing devils advocate if all the residents dumped the bins in the street the council would have to pick them up as it is their property.
As I said the 70p per week is not an issue and I have signed up but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. And as regards to feeding the needy
this govt wastes more than enough on things not needed to rein in the purse strings to generate enough cash to look after all the needy and homeless in this country.
We have just had it introduced and its £75.
This was never mentioned in any manifesto. It has been introduced with no consultation.
We’ve worked out a deal with our neighbours, who have more frontal space as their building isn’t divided into flats, and are splitting the cost.
It’s not, I don’t think, a manifesto ‘thing’ being local council initiated. But I guess if you don’t have a garden (as lots don’t) then you might wonder why those that do get their waste removed for free?
For the same reason they get the rest of their domestic waste removed – it has to go somewhere, and it’s better for everyone if that isn’t the hedgerow or the field.
Everyone has ‘household waste’ but not everyone has garden waste. I would guess that’s part of the reason for the separate charge, the other being because they can.
Garden waste IS household waste if you have a garden. FFS
As I said , not everyone has it. ffs
Not everyone has kids, but I still have to contribute for the lollipop ladies. FFS
Too much information………
Obviously in an ideal world this would not be an issue, but I think we’re way past ‘ideal’
And maybe that makes me a sop, but until the government changes then I’d rather pay the charge than see more essential services get cut.
One word of advice. Compost. 🙂
This is correct, but only covers some of the green waste.
Covers the majority, though. We take bags of pernicious weeds to the recycling centre, but pretty much everything else – grass cuttings, hedge trimmings, veg peel, ext, ect – goes on the heaps. Even the weeds can be composted if you drown them for a few weeks first. Grey Area is a compost bore. . .
Would love to compost but my garden isn’t big enough unfortunately.
Doesn’t cover the four metric tonnes of new twigs my bastard cherry tree sprouts every year!
You should chop it down and concrete over the stump. Beautiful!
Look on the bright side. Once you’re free of Europe, its ‘Gardyloo’ all ‘round!
Once we’re free of Europe we can stop recycling altogether. Hurray!
😂😂😂
“Musings on the byways of popular culture” – and refuse collections!
Somewhat disappointed by the distinctly metropolitan level of somewhat biased comprehension revealed in this thread.
I sort of don’t mind the garden waste service. The fee pays for a large bin and we have fortnightly collections. It pretty much takes care of all our garden waste and I know it is being composted at the other end. When I was a kid, garden waste used to be burnt in the garden. It was never collected as refuse. This seems like progress and not a reduction in service to me.
Yep. In the days before recycling you put anything that’d fit into your dustbin and the council collected it. Whatever was left over had to be either burned or dumped.
I don’t know what this thread is about but everyone seems jolly cross. Excellent.
Oh you can fuck off, too.
😉
Arguing for fun, Bobster. Couldn’t give a stuff either way really.
Oh I know; I think the whole thing’s terrific. 🙂
I’m waiting for Jingle to tell us about compoast.
Obviously I do not know how everyone is placed financially or how everyone is being or has been affected by years of the austerity policies foisted upon us. If for some individuals it boils down to having to pay a nominal sum for the removal of their garden waste so some vital services can be continued all I can say is count your blessings and pay up. Ffs.
I find this view difficult to argue with.
So do I.
70p a week!
…what he said.
Bit you’re ignoring the very point of the OP: the green bin used to be part of what you got for your rates, then someone decided, without consultation or a mandate, to make it an extra. That’s what boils one’s piss, the sheet effrontery. What’s the next optional extra (at additional cost)?
The green bin was never part of what I got for my rates. It was either burnt or composted when I was a kid. You may be able to get some of it in your bin but not very much (if any).
I’m totally happy with local councils making the decision to redirect their restricted budgets to essential services. I think it’s probably expected of them, actually.
I’m totally unhappy with local councils making the decision to save money on the low hanging fruit. I think it’s gutless behaviour, when what they should really be doing is giving everyone a lantern and a pitchfork and organising a march on that London.
I’d happily support that as well.
If the fruit is still hanging its not going to be garden waste is it!
Hur
As a fully paid-up member of the metropolitan liberal elite, I can confirm that here beneath the bright lights of Hackney we get an excellent refuse and recycling service.
The black-bag rubbish is collected every week along with the green bag mixed recycling. I have at times put out more than a dozen bags of each, which have all been taken, so I have no idea what the acceptable upper limit might be.
Also weekly is the food recycling collection; we are given little compostable bags for the food scraps and they got in a lockable blue bin so those scamps the urban foxes don’t get in there and make a mess.
In addition we get a brown bin for garden waste which is collected every fortnight, and if you find that’s not enough you can request some brown sacks to go on the side.
The food waste is composted down and used in Hackney’s parks, which is heartwarming. No idea what they do with the garden waste, but there is a persistent rumour that unmarked council trucks drive into the countryside at night and flytip it just for the fun of annoying rural types.
Though I feel obliged to emphasise that this was not an official pledge in any of the parties’ manifestos at the last local elections, so none of us voters and hard-working families have actually been consulted on this policy.
This excellent service, honestly it’s one of the few things LBH does really well, comes at no additional cost on top of our already extortionate council tax.
You can, however, pay those nice chap at the town hall to take away bulky items – £15 gets you five items shifted, which seems a good deal to me and it’s free if you’re on housing benefit.
I expect this is all Diane Abbott’s fault.
The green waste dumped at our local tip is composted commercially and resold at the tip (and elsewhere presumably). No idea how much they sell but garden waste seems to make up a large part of what is taken to the tip so someone must be making money somewhere.