Huge U-turn as North Devon businesses spared trade waste axe

Trade waste collections will continue to serve more than 1,500 businesses in North Devon after councillors made a U-turn.

Prices will rise by 46 per cent from April to prevent the service from making continued losses.

Recycling collections will cease, apart from those for Airbnbs, schools, charities and small-scale businesses who currently have their recycling collected on domestic recycling rounds.

North Devon Council’s strategy and resources committee reconsidered their decision to scrap the full waste and recycling service on Monday following a highly charged extraordinary council meeting last week, triggered by a petition of 1,600 names.

Council leader David Clayton (Lib Dem, Barnstaple with Westacott) admitted to making mistakes after the committee’s initial decision was based on a consultation of just 20 businesses who would be affected.

He said he has since listened to the views of all business owners and was making “a form of compromise.”

The waste and recycling service, which the council has been providing for 20 years but did not have to by law, has been making a loss for years, and this loss was due to rise to £200,000 next year as a recycling vehicle needed replacing.

Businesses said they would be willing to pay more as they considered it an “excellent” service but had not been given an option by the council when they received letters in the post saying it would end in April.

They said changing to private providers would cost between 70 and 80 per cent more in charges.

Head of environmental enhancement Mark Kentell told the meeting this week that, following the strength of feeling about the service, he would happily keep the whole lot going and could “make it work” by using a short-term solution of hiring two split-loader vehicles.

He said continuing some recycling collections would cause an “awful lot of jiggery-pokery” on the rounds.

But an amendment to continue with the full waste and recycling service was narrowly lost.

It would mean up to an 80 per cent rise in charges to compensate for a loss of customers.

Three hundred businesses had already made enquiries about changing to other providers, and 20 had left the service, the meeting heard.

Cllr Clayton said the council could not collect food waste due to capacity at its depot, and businesses were looking at a one-stop shop for waste, general recycling, and food waste collections when new legislation came in this year.

He called the discussion this week “like groundhog day”, as the waste and recycling service has been on the agenda of numerous meetings since November.

But he later said: “I admit I have made mistakes and have learned from this. We will reintroduce trade waste, but it will necessitate a big increase to cover all the costs.

“We will not let a single penny of council taxpayers’ money subsidise this. If the service loses money, it goes.”