Council outlines next phase of waste and recycling service

Bridgend County Borough Council has outlined how it intends to provide waste and recycling collection services to local households over the next few years and beyond.

With the contract between Kier Services Limited and the council due to end on 31 March 2024, Plan B Management Solutions Ltd have been appointed to provide a two-year interim service which will last until 2026.

This is intended to allow more time for the council to take advantage of technological changes in the development of cleaner, greener, ultra-low emission collection vehicles, and to also ensure that a longer-term collection service is capable of meeting whatever new recycling targets may be set by Welsh Government.

The interim service will continue to use existing vehicles and waste and recycling containers, and there will be no changes to either the way in which materials are collected or the days on which household collections take place.

As each of the existing vehicles used for collecting waste and recycling is subject to strict maintenance inspections which take place every six weeks, the fleet remains in good condition and is expected to remain usable right up to the end of the interim contract.

The council has also commissioned a report from specialists Eunomia on how the waste and recycling service can continue once the interim contract expires on 31 March 2026.

This has focused upon three different options – bringing waste and recycling services back in-house within the council, transferring the service into a local authority trading company, or re-procuring a new external waste services contractor – and was recently discussed at a scrutiny committee meeting.

Feedback from the scrutiny meeting will be considered by Cabinet prior to a decision being made on which service model will be the most efficient and effective for the county borough, whether the service can be expanded to include additional materials, what the frequency of collections will be and more.

Councillor John Spanswick, Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Environment, said: “When it comes to waste and recycling, excellent efforts from the residents of Bridgend County Borough have consistently made us one of the top three performing areas in Wales.

“With a current recycling rate of 72 per cent, we are continuing to exceed Welsh Government targets, and are successfully diverting large amounts of waste away from being disposed of as landfill.

“Kier will withdraw from the contract on 31 March 2024 while Plan B take it on for an interim two-year period leading up to 2026, but the only change that local householders may notice is that the collection vehicles will feature a different name.

“I am aware that some questions have been asked about the condition and age of the waste and recycling vehicles following a recent issue where some collections were missed, so I am happy to clarify that this was caused by external delays in the specialist six-weekly servicing that each vehicle requires, and was not because of any major faults with the vehicles themselves.

“At the end of the interim two-year period, entirely new collection vehicles will need to be sourced before a longer-term waste and recycling service begins, and extensive public consultation will need to be carried out in the event of any proposed changes to how that service will operate.

“In the meantime, as Plan B Management Solutions Ltd prepare to take over the interim service ready for 1 April 2024, every effort is being made to ensure that the transition remains as seamless and as smooth as possible.”