Issue - meetings

To consider any questions submitted by Members of the Council, in accordance with Standing Order 4.8.11 (b).

In accordance with Standing Order 4.8.11(b), three questions had been submitted by Members by the deadline date for questions set out in the Council’s Constitution regarding the following:

(A)            Garden Waste Re-Subscription

(B)            Community Infrastructure Levy

(C)            Educational Provision in the Local Plan:

Councillor Richard Thake declared that he was an elected Member of Hertfordshire County Council and in asking this question, which clearly has implications for the provision of education, for which the County Council is the statutory provider, wished to make it clear that he did not consider that there was any interests that would be improper. He was asking the question as a concerned parent, grandparent and resident of North Hertfordshire because of his concerns about the future of education.

Audio recording – 33 minutes 12 seconds

In accordance with Standing Order 4.8.11(b), three questions had been submitted by Members by the deadline date for questions set out in the Council’s Constitution as follows:

(A)      Garden Waste Re-Subscription

Councillor David Levett to Councillor Elizabeth Dennis-Harburg (Executive Member for Recycling and Waste Management):

“Following the extension to the previous charging period for Garden Waste and the introduction of stickers to identify those residents who have paid for collection of garden waste could the Executive Member say how many households have re-subscribed to the service and what percentage uptake this represents?”

Councillor Elizabeth Dennis-Harburg (Executive Member for Recycling and Waste Management provided the following response:

“There is a question more answerable and probably the one intended. The question how many households have re-subscribed was difficult to get the data for, as it would be onerous on officers to pull together the data regarding all those who subscribed last year but didn’t this year and it would exclude all of the people who did not subscribe last year, but have subscribed this year.

I think Councillor Levett may be asking how many households had signed up to the service this year and what percentage that amounts to.

As of 3pm today, 25,475 households have signed up to the Garden Waste Service which is 47.8 percent of the households in the District (June, July, August and 1-12 September 2019)

During the first 3 months of the 2018/19 subscription period, noting that these were different months due to the extension, 21,354 households who had paid for one or more garden waste bins to be collected.

Some residents have paid for more than one bin, the total number of bins that have been paid for in June, July and August this year is 25,366, last year the total number of bins paid for was 21,732. In the comparable period of the first 3 months more people had subscribed this year.

Based on anecdotal evidence there are some people who have chosen to drop out of the scheme, but equally there are new households who have opted in and once the autumn leaf fall period is past perhaps we can do some analysis and if you really want to know which households have chosen not to re-subscribe and try to think about the reasons customers might chose not to, then that is a piece of work we could do later in the year.

I feel that, at the moment, bearing in mind the pressures on the department, its possibly not the right time to be doing that work,”

Councillor David Levett asked the following supplementary question:

“That was part of the answer, but it was also to find out why people had not re-subscribed, but this data can be looked at later.

Bearing in mind that answer, the new Administration, prior to the election made a number of commitments regarding the charging for garden waste and brown bins ie:

·                 Bin the brown bin tax now;

·                 Liberal  ...  view the full minutes text for item 41