Petition launched against £56 green waste collection fee and recycling centre booking plans

Last month, following a review, the authority confirmed plans that will see all five of its household recycling centres remaining open – albeit with significant changes.

Under the plans the centres in Whitchurch, Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Craven Arms, and Bridgnorth will now close one day a week, and people will be required to book an appointment to use them.

The council also agreed to bring in a £56-a-year charge for collecting green waste bins from people's homes.

Now a petition has been launched opposing two of the planned changes – the green waste charge and the booking system.

So far 224 people have signed the petition – with 1,000 names needed for the issue to be discussed by the full council.

When Shropshire Council carried out a consultation on the plans earlier this year 59 per cent of the 18,000+ people who responded said they were against a booking system.

A total of 25 per cent were in favour, while 16 per cent said they didn't know.

In terms of green waste, the consultation found that 92 per cent of respondents used the green bin provided by the council.

Although the proposed charge being introduced by the council for green waste collections is £56 a year, its actual consultation asked if people were prepared to pay the lesser amount of £52.

The response saw a total of 62 per cent of people saying even £52 was "not a fair charge", with 30 per cent saying it is.

The latest petition, which closes on September 11, questions how the changes reflect the responses to the consultation.

It states: "After a public consultation which generated an unprecedented response, the council appears to have made decisions without regard to public opinion on the charges and the proposed booking system for the recycling centres.

"The changes may fail to raise revenue due to reduce uptake and may make matters worse. We therefore petition the council to heed the comments made in their reports in their consultation."

It then calls on the council to make two specific changes.

It says: "One – significantly reduce the proposed annual charge of £56 per year for each green bin. This cost will be prohibitive to many people and will result in less recycling and increased fly tipping, costing more to clean it up and a blot on our beautiful county."

It adds: "Two – the proposal to introduce a booking system should be abandoned. Our experience in using the excellent recycling facilities is that it isn’t required and there will be an unnecessary cost to set it up. If people can’t dispose of their waste when they need to, again there will be less recycling and more fly tipping. It also discriminates against those who don’t have digital access."

The petition is avaiable on the Shropshire Council website.