Residents of a Banburyshire district are set to lose their free garden waste collections

The new West Northants Council cabinet is to review the collections and are to consider 'harmonising' payments that households in the Daventry and Northampton districts of the county make to have their garden waste removed.

The proposal is to charge £42 per year for 2022/23 – the equivalent of £1.65 per collection, the same as Northampton and Daventry.

Cherwell District Council is to introduce charges for its garden waste collection from next year.

West Northants Council's cabinet will meet next Tuesday to discuss the proposals which they describe as 'unifying' garden waste collections across West Northamptonshire 'so all residents have the same and equal service'. If, as expected, they confirm the payments, they would start on April 1, 2022.

'Harmonisation' is a requirement set by Government in establishing the new West Northamptonshire Council.

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) currently runs three different fortnightly collection schemes for garden waste, inherited from the old district and borough councils it replaced in April this year.

Since 2018 people living in the former Daventry area and since 2020 in the Northampton area have chosen whether or not they wish to have garden waste collections. If they do, they pay an extra, yearly fee to help fund the service. Residents in the former South Northants area however currently receive the collections at no extra charge.

If approved, all residents across West Northants would have the option to choose whether or not to receive garden waste collections for 2022/23 by subscribing to the service for the annual charge.

At their meeting, Cabinet members will also consider plans to offer residents discounts on home composters in the run-up to April 1 next year as an alternative to signing up to the garden waste service.

Councillor Phil Larratt, WNC’s Portfolio Holder for Climate, Transport, Highways and Waste, said: “It’s important that all our residents, wherever they live in West Northants, have equal and fair choices on the services we provide. There is currently great disparity in the way we’re delivering garden waste collections across the area, which is why we’re reviewing the arrangements we took on from the old councils.

“Some residents really value having garden waste collections, but we also know that others don’t need or use them, so the proposal to make it an opt-in chargeable service for everyone aims to ensure that only those residents who want them end up paying for them.

"Chargeable garden waste collections have already been running successfully in the Daventry and Northampton areas for a varying number of years now and residents are very familiar with how the service works, although I appreciate that extending these to cover the whole of West Northants would mean significant changes for households in the south of our area. Should Cabinet decide to progress these proposals then we’ll make sure all residents are kept fully informed and updated on future service changes and what these mean for them.”