'Once every three weeks' bin collections proposed

Ribble Valley Borough Council is the only Lancashire authority still to collect non-recyclable waste on a weekly basis

Lancashire's district councils are being encouraged to start collecting general household waste bins only once every three weeks, the leader of Pendle Borough Council has said.

David Whipp said the cost-cutting idea was being "pushed quite hard" by Lancashire County Council (LCC).

The county council is responsible for processing and disposing rubbish, but it is the duty of the dozen district authorities to collect it from the kerbside. Each currently makes their own arrangements.

An LCC spokesman said "several options" had been modelled, but "ultimately it will be up to each waste collection authority to decide what works best for them".

'Potential savings'

Currently 11 districts – Burnley, Chorley, Fylde, Hyndburn, Lancaster, Pendle, Preston, Rossendale, South Ribble, West Lancashire and Wyre – empty bins reserved for non-recyclable waste every two weeks, alternating with recyclable waste.

Ribble Valley Borough Council is the only Lancashire authority still to collect non-recyclable waste on a weekly basis.

The standalone councils in Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen also run alternating two-weekly collections, but Blackpool Council last month agreed to move to three-weekly general waste collections from next spring.

A letter from LCC's chief executive, Mark Wynn, to his counterparts at authorities across the county asked for their "initial responses" to the "collection modelling" work that could have "potential savings" of about £6m a year.

'Deeply unpopular'

While the correspondence does not specifically refer to a shift to three-weekly collections, Whipp said that was exactly the arrangement put on the table during a recent county council presentation.

While he accepted the change may eventually prove inevitable as a way of boosting recycling rates, the Liberal Democrats' leader in Pendle – who also sits on the opposition benches on the Reform UK-run county council – told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that this was "completely the wrong time" and would prove "deeply unpopular" with residents.

In contrast, Wynn's letter suggested that now was the right time to make any changes ahead of the forthcoming government-ordered shake-up of Lancashire's councils.

This will see the current 15 authorities axed and replaced with a handful of new ones.

Each which will be responsible for both waste collection and disposal across large swathes of the county.

An LCC spokesman said: "Changes to waste collections are being driven nationally, starting with the introduction of weekly food waste collections next year."

He said the authority had been working "to develop a new waste strategy for Lancashire to incorporate the national changes into existing waste services".