The Conservative Administration at Cheshire West and Chester Council has today announced the outcome of its procurement process to develop a new single waste collection service for the Borough.
Next week the Members of the Councils Executive will vote to formally endorse a recommendation to appoint May Gurney as the preferred contractor to roll out a new harmonised waste collection service to all Cheshire West and Chester residents.
The procurement of this new service has been directed by a group of Conservative councillors who insisted that extensive consultation be at the heart of shaping the new service. The resulting fourteen-year contract, which will commence in April 2012, will transform the three existing collection arrangements into a single new service over a twelve-month period.
Cllr Lynn Riley, Portfolio Holder for Community and Environment said;” This new contract demonstrates what we mean when we talk about our commitment to customer service, delivering the most innovative services we can whilst achieving the best value for money for our council tax payers. We asked the public last year what they wanted the service to look like and have structured a procurement process to deliver this. Our approach has proved the Government’s claim that when power and control passes from Whitehall to local councils, you can do considerably more for less.”
Weaver and Cuddington Ward Councillor John Grimshaw said ”The proposed new service also marks a significant step on our commitment to reducing our carbon footprint and will drive our recycling performance from 48% to over 60% in 2013. We are giving our residents more choice in the type of things they can recycle and working together with our communities we will be sending less to landfill.”
The Council’s approach to delivering improved services at lower cost will provide average savings of over £50m over the 14 year life of the contract: almost double the target set by members at the beginning of the procurement process.
The high recycling levels mean a potential further £26m could be saved in disposal costs delivering a total of £76m in savings over the life of the contract.
Councillors approached the new service design in a different way. Rather than looking at solving a problem, the new service treats recyclable waste as a valuable resource, maximising the quality and quantity of materials it collects and getting the best possible price for them in order to keep the cost to the Council down.
The number of materials collected for recycling will be greatly expanded. The new scheme will introduce weekly collection of kitchen food waste and will increase recycling collections from fortnightly to weekly. The remaining residual waste will be collected fortnightly. Garden waste will continue to be collected fortnightly.
Kitchen food waste makes up around a third of the waste we throw out in our residual waste bins. By introducing separate weekly food waste collections this waste will be recycled into energy and fertiliser rather than going to landfill. Residents will have the added reassurance that the smelly components have been removed from their bin.
The new service will allow households to recycle glass bottles and jars, mixed paper, cardboard, food and drinks cans, aluminium foil, mixed household plastic, textiles, beverage cartons, batteries, spectacles, small electrical items, mobile phones, used cooking and engine oil, shoes, printer cartridges, garden waste and kitchen waste, from their doorsteps.
Councillors have insisted from day 1 that high levels of customer service must be at the heart of a new service. As part of the public consultation exercise in 2010 residents were asked about the ‘little things which made a big difference’ to the service they receive. The new service will incorporate many additional measures to ensure high levels of customer service including improved performance standards for returning bins after collection, clearing spills and state of the art IT in the vehicles which will help prevent missed collections.
A new bulky waste collection, reuse and recycling service will also be introduced. It will be delivered through a Big Society approach working with the Cheshire Furniture Reuse Forum, a local community network of not for profit groups which will be subcontracted.
