A council has rejected a call to waive next year’s garden waste collection fees following months of disruption to the service.
Rotherham Council had considered offering financial compensation after the service, which is paid for via an annual £40 fee, was suspended until the end of August, with a reduced service resuming in September.
Subscribers are instead offered a £10 refund or discount on next year’s renewal, a gesture described as “inadequate and insulting” during a full council meeting on Wednesday.
Councillors voting against waiving the fee said the motion would be “disproportionate to the level of disruption experienced”.
The proposal, tabled by Conservative councillors Simon Ball and Joshua Bacon, also called for the council to issue a public apology and commission an independent review into the service.
It followed widespread frustration among residents whose brown bin collections were suspended in early August due to staff shortages, with the disruption continuing well beyond the council’s planned end-of-August restart date.
‘Callous’
The motion argued that the suspension “disproportionately affected vulnerable groups,” including residents with disabilities who rely on the brown bin service for accessible waste disposal.
During the debate, Ball said the disruption had created “knock-on dangers” that were “risking lives and resources that should be focused elsewhere”, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
“Labour’s mismanagement isn’t just sloppy, it’s callous. Spare a thought to the non-drivers in our borough,” he said.
The standard annual subscription fee for garden waste collection in Rotherham is £49 for the first bin and £40 for each additional bin, meaning many households have paid significantly more than the refund being offered.
Labour councillor Victoria Cusworth acknowledged there had been “service challenges” which the council has to “learn from”.
However, she said waiving the fee would cause “considerable financial implications”.
“Implementing it would divert vital resources away from other areas,” she said.
“I can’t think of any other service that I pay for where I would lose a few weeks’ service and get a full year’s refund.”
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