14 July 2023 District Council to Manage Waste and Recycling Collections
The
District Council has decided to create a council owned company that
will collect household waste and recycling. It will also provide street
cleansing.
The new arrangements are planned to be in place
once the existing contract with Biffa ends in November 2024, with the
Council planning to take full management control including:
A council owned operating company
Buying, or leasing and maintaining its own vehicles
Building a new operations hub at North Weald to support the vehicle fleet and crews
This
follows last winter's disruption to the service. Earlier this year the
Council decided to go to market and run a full procurement process for
the Waste/Street Cleansing contract. At the time, the Council also
announced they were planning to use part of North Weald Airfield to
park and maintaining refuse vehicles when not on the road, after a new
contractor was in place. They have now decided outsourcing to a private
company is not the way forward for the service.
The Council has
not publicly released material related to the decision or given details
on the outcomes they expect, except to say "value for money is much
more important than the cheapest option [and] the new service will need
to hit environmental targets as well as customer expectations." They
also say they are "moving away from diesel, looking at ways to procure
a greener, cleaner fleet powered by more sustainable fuels". More
LRA Comment: This
may save money as the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
has stated that the market for services in this area is highly
concentrated (p10)
when they investigated the merger of Veolia and
Suez in 2022, which can lead to higher costs for Councils. However it
could make the District Council vulnerable to strike action (from
which it's been free since the 1980s). It does make a third
wheelie bin more likely for recycling, which may be fine for houses
with big
gardens and side exits; but impractical for small houses and cottages.
3 March 2023 Disruption to Waste and Recycling Collections
Collections seem to have returned to normal, with only a small number of roads currently affected.
If you collection is missed, check here. If your road is on the list leave your bins out to be collected. If your road is not on the list report it here.
If you are reliant on an assisted collection and this is not happening, report it to the District Council online
or call 01992 564000. (Assisted collections can be arranged for elderly
or disabled residents who cannot move their bins to the boundary,
providing there is no-one else in their household or they have a
willing neighbour who is able to move the bins for them. You can apply here or call 01992 564000.)
10 February 2023 Disruption to Waste and Recycling Collections
The District Council has provided an update
on the ongoing issues with domestic waste and recycling collections.
Most of the excessive number of full bins and piles of recycling that
were on the streets in January have now been taken away.
There are now only small number of streets where collections have been missed. If your collection is missed, check here first to see if Council already knows, in which case leave your bins out to be collected. More on what to do if this does not happen.
As
reported previously the Council has now decided to go to market and run
a full procurement process for the Waste/Street Cleansing contract. The
Council is also reported to be looking at options at North Weald
Airfield for parking and maintaining refuse vehicles when they are not
on the road, plus washing and parking facilities for the crews. No
waste will be processed there. The aerodrome is the only place they
have to do this, though of course it is a long way from most of the
population in the District. They say that this will put the Council in
a better position when procuring the new waste and recycling contract
when the current one expires in November 2024, and potentially brings
down costs for more companies to bid, knowing that there is a central
council-owned place to park trucks to keep, clean, and maintain all the
refuse fleet when not on their rounds. One of the reasons Biffa won the
contract is that they could do this. In reality, there are not many
firms who are in a position to bid anyway.
The Council are also making budget provision to buy new refuse vehicles to replace the current ageing fleet. LRA
Comment: The District Council should not have been so quick to sell off
its Langston Road depot 8-9 years ago, which was much more central to
the population. They used it for the Epping Forest Shopping Park, and
in doing so created a traffic bottleneck.
13 January 2023 Apology for Missed Bin Collections
The District Council has apologised for the ongoing issues with domestic waste and recycling collections.
Poor
performance by waste and recycling contractor Biffa over Christmas and
the New Year has compounded problems due to the severe weather earlier
in December. While the pre-Christmas cold snap exacerbated the current
difficulties, the recent problems are part of a longer term trend.
There
are many causes to the current situation. The District Council may now
be questioning the wisdom of redeveloping the old refuse vehicle
maintenance depot on Langston Road and getting Biffa to maintain depots
instead, along with a fleet of new lorries which may all need replacing
at once. LRA has pointed this out in the past.
If your collection is missed, check here first to see if Council already knows, in which case leave your bins out to be collected. More on what to do
if this does not happen. Currently there are dozens of streets in our
town that have not had recycling or food and garden waste bins
collected.
As
reported previously the Council have now decided go to market and run a
full procurement process for the Waste/Street Cleansing contract which
expires in November 2024.
14 July 2023