Have your say on the council’s proposal to increase its annual charge for the collection of garden waste which will help balance our budget.
Background
We are committed to the responsible management of the council’s finances. However, like many local authorities and households across the country, Barnet is facing unprecedented financial challenges across all areas of our work. These challenges include the continued uncertainty over government funding, and economic uncertainty with high inflation, high interest rates, and the cost of living continuing to rise.
Against this backdrop we must ensure our budget for the future is balanced. All local authoritiesContinue reading
Have your say on the council’s proposal to increase its annual charge for the collection of garden waste which will help balance our budget.
Background
We are committed to the responsible management of the council’s finances. However, like many local authorities and households across the country, Barnet is facing unprecedented financial challenges across all areas of our work. These challenges include the continued uncertainty over government funding, and economic uncertainty with high inflation, high interest rates, and the cost of living continuing to rise.
Against this backdrop we must ensure our budget for the future is balanced. All local authorities are legally required to set a balanced budget every year and ensure they have enough money to deliver services to their residents and businesses. A crucial element of this is ensuring a council is meeting the costs of the services they provide.
We also know that keeping Barnet's environment clean and well maintained is one of the best ways we can support residents to enjoy a good quality of life, and that the many services we deliver are valued by local people.
Our current garden waste collection service
We currently provide a fortnightly collection of garden waste as part of a chargeable opt-in service. The costs of providing the service include collection vehicles, collection crews, fuel, vehicle maintenance, and transport and treatment costs for the garden waste that is collected.
However, Barnet has not raised its garden waste charge since its introduction in 2020. Increasing the charge for garden waste collections is one of our proposals that will help us balance our budget and ensure we can sustain our current environmental service offer.
What we are proposing
To help balance our budget the council is proposing to:
- increase the current annual garden waste collection charge from £70.00 to £97.00 per annum:
- this is an increase of £27.00 per year, which equates to an additional charge of around 52p per week extra (or £2.25 per month)
- for residents claiming Council Tax Benefit, who are within Income Band 1 of our Council Tax Support Scheme, we are proposing to apply a concessionary rate by freezing the current garden waste collection charge at £70.00.
Your views are important to us
We know that people value the garden waste collection service and we are asking residents to give us their views on our proposals. Even if you don't currently use the service, we would still like your views.
How to have your say:
- Complete our online questionnaire:
We are keen to hear your views on our proposals and encourage you to have your say by completing our online questionnaire.
- If you require a paper copy of the questionnaire or another format:
Please email michael.lai@barnet.gov.uk or write to Michael Lai, London Borough of Barnet, Oakleigh Depot, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1HJ.
What happens after the consultation closes?
The council will use the consultation findings to inform our final decision. We will publish the results of the consultation, our decision and how we are acting on the results of the consultation on this web page in Spring 2024.
