Council could miss £4m garden bin charge target

The council remained hopeful more households would sign up for the scheme, which it said was a "key element" in helping increase income

A council could fail to generate the £4m it hoped from its garden waste collections because not enough residents have subscribed to the service.

Green bins will now only be emptied by Cheshire East Council if people have paid the new annual £56 subscription fee.

The authority needs 90,000 households to sign up to meet its budget target, but so far fewer than 56,000 have.

It said there had been an increase in the rate of subscriptions in December and January, which it expected would continue as garden waste collections restarted, and the growing season began.

Cheshire East Council has described the garden waste recycling scheme as a "key element" in helping increase its income and having a balanced budget by the end of March 2024.

The fee for having garden waste collected could rise to £59 next year as the £3 increase is one of the proposals in the 2024/25 budget consultation.

Cheshire East councillor Mick Warren remained hopeful the authority would reach its subscription target:

“As set out in the council’s adopted medium-term financial strategy (MTFS), our garden waste recycling scheme has a total income target of £4.05m, with £900,000 of this income budgeted for in 2023/24.

“So far, almost 56,000 households have subscribed to the scheme – against the 90,000 subscriptions needed to meet the total MTFS income target – which equates to an income of around £3.15m to date.”

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.