Agenda item

C Thorpe introduced the report to members and said this quarter was concentrated on the implications of covid-19 and reacting to new local restrictions but the department have tried to maintain services where possible. The bulky item collection service has been restarted and this was the only service that was stopped in the first national lockdown and 30 members of staff are back to work after shielding at home. DBC have joined other Hertfordshire authorities to have the vehicle banners removed and replaced with ‘NHS Play Your Part’ banners. He ran through other highlights for the department in this quarter including staff training, trees and woodlands, vehicle MOT backlogs, and the performance targets.

Councillor Ransley was pleased to see that the team would be planting more trees and asked if it would be possible to let ward councillors know if any are being planted in their wards. She said this will give members a chance to tell residents.

C Thorpe said that would be possible.
Action: C Thorpe

Councillor Riddick asked about the waste transfer site and the increase in tonnage.

C Thorpe said this was a historic measure and relates to the storage and bulking of comingled material that is collected in the blue bins. He said this hadn’t increased massively but would amend the figures to make them more accurate.

Councillor Riddick asked if the government would be providing financial assistance for the additional costs involved due to covid-19.

C Thorpe said he believed that claims were being submitted for the additional staff and vehicles needed due to social distancing measures.

Councillor Silwal asked if ward councillors could be provided with no littering signs to put up in their wards.

C Thorpe said the new education officer would be looking at this as part of her work.

Councillor Timmis asked if the Moor in Berkhamsted had been restored after being used as the temporary car park.

Councillor Stevens confirmed that the grass had been reseeded and the grass is coming through. There are still fences up and the Moor is unlikely to be back in use until Spring 2021 after the first grass cut of the season.

Councillor Timmis said there were collection targets for recycling and green waste but asked why there wasn’t one for the waste in the grey bins.

C Thorpe said there was not a target for residual waste.

Councillor Timmis said it might be interesting to see if that waste decreases as recycling increases.

C Thorpe said this waste has also increased.

Councillor Timmis asked why there were no figures for commercial waste collections.

C Thorpe said that throughout the first lockdown, businesses moved, closed or suspended their collections. Currently at the stage where we are trying to ascertain which businesses are back up and running.

Councillor Beauchamp asked what the criteria is for a justified missed bin collection.

C Thorpe said this is occasions where the bin has been left out and the crew have genuinely missed them.

Councillor Beauchamp said some residents had reported to him that they had reported their bin as missed and left their bins outside and then were not collected still. He asked what the process was

C Thorpe said the crew should be recording which bins are left out or not so when a missed bin is reported, we can check whether they were left out or not. The team do endeavour to collect those bins that haven’t been left out.

Councillor Birnie referred to 4.3 and the pressure of £135k relating to the increased costs of disposal of comingled recycling.

C Thorpe said we are collecting more waste as more people are at home so therefore paying more to dispose of. The contractor also charged additional processing fees during this time as they had to increase social distancing measures and recruit additional staff to work weekends to cover the demand.

Councillor Birnie then referred to 4.4 and the pressure of £250k on income from Herts County Council.

C Thorpe said this relates to the Alternative Financial Model that rewards local authorities for diverting waste away from landfill. Dependent on how much residual waste is diverted, if the tonnage goes up, the income is reduced. Obviously, during lockdown, waste has increased as more people are staying at home and household waste recycling centres were shut so the reduction in payment is unfair as it is not the fault of the service. This has been raised at member level.

Councillor Beauchamp asked about the recycling of commercial waste and he said he had a number of food businesses in his ward and asked if they could request additional bins.

C Thorpe said they are currently offering a service of recycling collection to existing customers and they can ask for a larger bin. Currently looking at the pricing mechanism as we need to make sure we are not offering the service at a loss.

Councillor Birnie noted that the reports on commercial waste need to be rescheduled on the work programme