Sustainable Hackney
New garden waste collection charges
Hackney Council has suddenly imposed an annual subscription for having garden waste collected, to take effect from 6th May but lasting initially until 31st March 2025.
While it's fair to charge the relatively small proportion of households which have private gardens with the cost of those collections, that charge should reflect the actual cost of providing the collection service. Assuming that everyone with a garden is rich and can be charged substantially more than that actual cost, to help Hackney reduce its budget shortfall, is clearly wrong. The other services that the Council provides benefit all, or far more, people than the garden waste collection service does, so the cost of those services should be spread evenly across all the borough's residents.
I've compared these new fees with what Hackney's neighbouring councils are charging. Up to now, the only one of those councils which has charged at all is Haringey; the two others still provide the service free.
Tower Hamlets collects two bags of garden waste weekly, at no charge: https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/.../rec.../garden_waste.aspx)
Newham council collects green/garden waste free from 1 March-September, "in normal black bin bags or in tied bundles" - but on request only: https://www.newham.gov.uk/homepage/73/green-and-garden-waste
Haringey charges from £60 (per 140 litre sack or bin) annually for a weekly collection: https://new.haringey.gov.uk/rubbish-recycling/garden-waste
Islington has introduced an annual £75 charge (beginning 1st April 2024) to empty three garden waste bags per fortnight: https://www.islington.gov.uk/recycling-and-rubbish/recycling/garden-waste-recycling NB The charge is halved to £37.50 for householders who receive Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support or Universal Credit.
Hackney wants £78 (per 140 litre brown bin) or £100 to empty two 90-litre garden waste bags, fortnightly: https://hackney.gov.uk/garden-waste. The only people who would pay lower average rates are those who want to have two bins or far more bags emptied regularly - which most Hackney gardeners won't need.
Hackney Council's publicity dishonestly implied that its new charges would be in line with other neighbouring councils' rates, which is clearly not true. Hackney's charges are double those that Islington is introducing from 1st April and Hackney isn't even offering discounted rates to its poorest residents.
The Council assumes that all garden waste can be compostable but, realistically, that only applies to soft green waste. Thin woody prunings still need to be collected (although thicker ones can be used for a log pile). Yet, while many gardeners may only need a small but irreducible amount of their garden waste collected, subscribers may well maximise the garden waste that they put out for collection to make up for having to pay for far more collections than they really need. Those on very tight budgets, who already struggle to both heat their homes and eat properly, will be particularly badly affected by the unavoidably high basic charge.
There are already problems with contractors and others putting garden waste into other people's bins, which cannot effectively be secured against abuse. The Council's waste collectors have also permanently taken away garden waste bags put out for emptying (and return to the householder) since at least February. One cannot now order any further bags without paying Hackney's new subscription rate. Yet most people with back gardens need those bags to bring dirty garden waste through their homes, if only to fill a bin kept at the front of their home.
Hackney Council should have consulted all Hackney gardeners about the practical issues before imposing this system. Rather than charging on the assumption that gardeners need to put out lots of garden waste every fortnight, year round, a fair approach would have been to charge only for the garden waste actually collected, using an equivalent to the visitor parking permits system. Having each full bag or bin emptied might cost more individually but that system would incentivise gardeners to compost etc as much of their garden waste as possible, thus minimising the overall cost of the collection service. It would also minimise the risks of unscrupulous people misusing subscribers' bins and bags.
What do you and your neighbours think?
Diana Weir
I've been notified that my e-petition against Hackney Council's overcharging residents for garden waste collection has finally gone 'live'. (It should be valid for a year from today - not from the day when I first submitted the draft, over six weeks ago now. I've asked the Council to correct that now, since I made that point when the draft was submitted but the Council kept delaying its acceptance and publication.)
Jul 5
Diana Weir
The Living in Hackney Scrutiny Commission has agreed to investigate this scheme as part of its work considering the borough's domestic waste and recycling collections.
The substantive public meeting about this should be on 18th November 2024 but the commission is already collecting material to use then. I talked to the commission clerk yesterday and, subject to the chairman's approval, it seems likely that there will be a public call for evidence soon.
So anyone who hasn't heard about the e-petition and/or has something different to say about the present scheme and/or the proposals for a 'phase 2' which would charge estate residents for collecting their garden waste, should have the opportunity to present their views to the scrutiny commission.
Sep 21
Diana Weir
At the express request of the Living in Hackney Scrutiny Commission, I spent weeks writing up what I had learned over the previous six months, setting out the relevant law and comparing that with what the Council had admitted in the complaints and FOI processes. The results were deeply critical of the Council officers involved, including the Acting Director of Legal Services - who failed to advise the Hackney Cabinet and full Council on the law which normally prohibits charging for collecting household waste.
But the officers so hated that report that they have managed to persuade the Commission not to publish it - disregarding the mandatory statutory requirement to make all reports and background papers for their meetings available to the public under the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended). So I stepped back in disgust from working actively with the Commission. The chairman of the Commission is supposed to be speaking to my report at the meeting this Monday evening, rather than my doing so.
I had been told earlier this week that there's to be an internal review of the garden waste charging scheme, but not until a year after that began. So there's no real prospect of the Council taking account of my and others' criticisms to reduce these over-high charges for this financial year or the one that begins on 1st April 2025. The Commission doesn't want to risk duplicating any of the work for that review, even though Overview & Scrutiny are meant to scrutinise Council policy and decisions, calling those in where necessary. The Council Executive is not objective and is very heavily invested in this charging policy, on which it has incurred some £200,000 of irrecoverable costs.
The Commission never asked the public for their views on any of the recent changes to the recycling and waste collections in Hackney, in case complaints about this scheme unbalanced its work on this remit. So far, it hasn't asked Environmental Services for the 1,000+ "queries" and complaints that it had received, although that may conceivably happen at Monday evening's meeting. One can only hope that Environmental Services are made to produce that evidence.
Nov 16