Cheshire green waste charges and library hours cuts backed

A proposal to introduce a £56 annual charge for collecting garden waste bins was approved

Residents are facing charges on green waste and cuts to library hours as officials try to reduce costs.

Cheshire East Council, run by a Labour/Independent Group coalition, said it has a £20m funding gap it needs to fill.

A proposal to bring in a £56 annual charge for collecting garden waste bins was narrowly approved by councillors.

Cutting opening hours of most libraries in the borough was also passed at the environment committee meeting.

The garden waste collection scheme is set to open for registrations in October and come into force from January.

The £56 annual cost would be higher than any other north-west council charges for the collections.

A number of councils, including those in Greater Manchester, have no charge.

Most others charge between £25 and £45 a year, with Wirral Council charging £52.50.

Crewe library will see opening times reduced by 10 hours a week from November

Collections are not a statutory service, meaning councils have no legal obligation to provide them.

During the meeting of the Environment and Communities Committee, concerns were raised about the disparity with the cost charged by neighbouring Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Cheshire West and Chester Council charge £40 for a green waste service that runs for 40 weeks a year and also run a weekly food collection service.

Conservative councillor Hayley Whitaker, said: "Residents are going to compare us to our immediate neighbours, if their cost is cheaper and they're having food waste collected, it's going to cause problems."

Independent David Jefferay said: "We've got a hole in the budget and there's nowhere else to find it."

Cuts to the opening hours of libraries were also approved.

'Avoid financial spiral'

Cheshire East Council had been proposing to reduce opening times by up to 16 hours a week in some areas, but scaled back after residents' feedback.

Conservative councillor Stewart Gardiner said he would not support the proposals after reading feedback from one person who said they visited the library because they were lonely.

But Labour's Linda Buchanan said she would vote for it even though she did not want to.

She said she did not want the council to "go into a financial spiral of despair" and highlighted authorities such as Thurrock and Woking that had been forced to impose emergency spending restrictions.