The garden waste collection service will be re-instated next week following a four month suspension.
Cheshire East will start collecting green bins again from Monday, 17th March.
The Council stopped the garden waste collections between 18th November 2013 and 14th March 2014 in a bid to save the authority more than £1m over the next four years.
Speaking at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, 4th March, Councillor David Topping, Cheshire East Council Cabinet member in charge of the environment, said "It was a strategic decision based on alternative delivery options and it avoided importantly the need to introduce charges for the collection of green waste."
He added "We didn't want to introduce charges for the collection of green waste, yet we are committed to saving £2.5m from the budget so we had to make a decision, we'd already got 2 months from previous years of not collecting green waste so we decided to extend it."
Cllr Topping continued "We realised there would be a reputation issue and it would not be popular with everybody but as I have said before it did affect the least number of people for only a specific period of time. So it was thought to be the best decision available to us at the time.
"We did not want to charge, a lot of Councils are actually starting to charge for green waste collection, we do not want to go down that route. What I can say is that we learned a lot from this period.
"We did get the dates wrong, and we weren't helped by the weather as well, the winds and so on. The leaves did not start to fall until the end of November so that did not help us either, but nevertheless we went ahead."
He added "There will be a review when this period finishes and that will be published and go out to consultation as well so the lessons we have learnt from this, particularly on dates, can be built into this decision for the coming year."
Updated: 3.30pm 14th March - I noticed lots of people had put their green bins out today. If your collection day is a Friday then the first green bin collection will be in two weeks on 28th March.
What do you think about the Council suspending the green waste collection for 4 months? Did you manage OK without the service, or not? Would you be happy to pay for this service? Share your views via the comment box below.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
Surely householders are already charged for this service through their Council Tax (formerly Community Charge) bills. To levy a second charge would surely be double-taxation.
Here's an idea; be honest about the true cost of services the Council needs to provide and then set Council Tax rates accordingly, rather than cutting services to make the sums add up.
What on earth can anyone say about the above comment.
I blame the changing of the seasons, I also blame the trees and the leaves they drop year after year after year. Perhaps the Council could slap a charge or tax on every shrub and tree that drop it's leaves. Littering is an offence that carries a fine. I wonder when the Council think that trees loose their leaves.
My bin is full to the top of leaves. Bin more than ready to be emptied. No I would not be happy to pay for this service a second time. We managed because we had to.
Pay for it - we already do.
Been a lot of fly tipping round Alderley area!!!
Still,we can't moan because we vote them in!!
Not quite sure who's the daftest,us or them.