Labour wins for your bins

Residents are celebrating after successfully winning the fight for the retention of the weekly bin collection. Cabinet minutes reveal that the Tories had not dismissed the option for a move to fortnightly collection. This 'ambiguity' was closed following a Labour campaign in the 2007 local election.

Bin Collection - Fortnightly?

Cabinet minutes from the 20th February 2007, revealed that the Medway Tory cabinet had actively considered the introduction of fortnightly bin collections. There was no attempt in that meeting to clearly state any opposition, and it was widely predicted they would introduce the cut in line with other budget cuts, to cover the black hole in the budget.

Labour campaigned in the local election to retain the weekly collection.

Commenting on the move Tristan Osborne, stated that

"the problem with introducing fortnighly collections in Strood is the density and type of housing. Victorian housing and high density developments in Strood were simply not designed to store rubbish. The scheme would require the dissemination of large wheely bins and there would be little space for storage. It took Labour and our local election campaign to close this issue once and for all. Once again the Tories follow the Labour lead."

Fortnighly Bin Collections

The move to fortnightly bin collections has been driven nationally by the government, who are rightly concerned about the impact of mountains of waste on our environment.

The government program however does not force all councils to adopt fortnightly collection. It allows individual Authorities the choice to opt into fortnightly bin collections. Studies conducted by the Local Government Association in April 2007, suggested that there were 144 councils that collected household rubbish one week and food waste the week after; a large majority of these were Conservative controlled administrations. Indeed, in more rural areas, the scheme has been received successfully by residents, as more rural communities have the space and capacity to store litter.

The study also revealed however, that of the 144 councils, very few were located in inner-city catchment areas. This is significant, as unlike rural areas, parts of Medway are densely populated. Therefore the benefits of a fortnighly collection in Strood, are outweighed by the lack of storage capacity, and potentially high numbers of vermin and smells of decaying waste that would result.

Labour will hold local Tories to account for published promises on retention of the weekly bin collection for all rubbish types.