Council looks set to pause introduction of food waste collections
News release issued:
Weekly food waste collections for households in the district may not be introduced until the Government provides the funding needed to run the service.
At its meeting on Thursday 5 February, Wyre Forest District Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee will consider a draft report which sets out the reason for the recommendation.
Wyre Forest District Council is required under legislation to collect food waste separately from 31 March 2026. However, a detailed procurement process, along with updated financial modelling, has shown that introducing the service would cost more than £1 million a year to operate. The Government has not provided any additional revenue funding to cover the day-to-day running of the service.
Councillor Nathan Desmond, Wyre Forest District Council’s Cabinet Member for Operational Services said:
“We fully support the principle of separate food waste collections and recognise the environmental benefits they can bring. But we cannot commit council taxpayers to a service that Government has required us to provide without giving us the money to run it.
At a time when our overall spending power is frozen and other vital local services are already under pressure; it would not be responsible to introduce a service costing more than £1 million a year without confirmed funding.”
Councillor David Ross, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and the Capital Portfolio, added:
“The Council has been left in an impossible position. Either we proceed with implementing food waste collections which would mean that we have to cut other services that communities value, or we set aside the legal requirement and push the Government to provide additional funding to allow us to implement what the legislation requires. It would not be right to create a further financial headache for our successor unitary authority, when the Government has not yet provided additional funding for Wyre Forest to implement food waste collections.”
The Council’s Overview and Scrutiny committee takes place on Thursday 5 February at 6pm. Any recommendations will then be considered by the Cabinet at its meeting on Wednesday 11 February at 6pm. Both meetings will be webcast. They can be viewed on our meeting streaming webpage.
There would be no change to the existing fortnightly waste and recycling collections, which would continue as normal.
Read the Overview and Scrutiny agenda.