How brown bin garden waste collection charge affects you

Householders are "being let down" by the introduction of a £50 charge to have garden waste collected from brown bins, a Tory councillor has said. Labour-run Ipswich Borough Council has announced it will introduce the annual fee, bringing it into line with all the other districts in Suffolk, but some residents fear it could mean more fly-tipping.

The charge will be introduced from April across the borough and is an optional service.

Households are encouraged to sign up before 14 March to continue receiving the fortnightly collections between April and March next year.

Subscriptions after this may incur a delay of up to 14 days to receive their permit in the post.

The council has said the collection of garden waste was not a statutory requirement under the Controlled Waste Regulations 2012 and therefore it did not have to provide a garden waste collection.

This means the service is not directly included in council tax bills.

The council previously said it needed to balance its budget and as part of this residents would see changes to services.

This included garden waste collection, as well as increased parking charges on Ipswich Town matchdays, both of which have now been introduced.

Ipswich is the cheapest for garden waste, alongside West Suffolk Council that similarly charges £50 a year.

East Suffolk Council charges £52.50, while Mid Suffolk District Council charges £62.

Babergh District Council in the south of the county charges the highest at £65.

The Conservative leader of the opposition at the town hall, Ian Fisher, said he felt Labour saw council taxpayers as having "deep pockets" - but how did it get to this point and what do residents think?

Fisher told the BBC: "Just in the past couple of weeks they have announced a 3% rise in council tax, increased parking charges and now a charge to have your brown bin collected.

"We all know finances are tough, but it really does not have to be like this."

He said he believed Labour had "failed to find alternative income streams" and the public would pay the price.

"I would not be so angry about the new brown bin charge if they were being run on a cost-neutral basis, but they aren't. The council stands to make huge profits on this."

Labour said it expected to potentially make £1.6m over the next four years through the service, but figures ultimately depend on the numbers of residents that sign up.

Fisher added that he feared there could be a "detrimental effect" on the amount of garden waste being placed into black general waste bins that could be costly to deal with.

He also argued other councils were "rural in nature" with bin lorries travelling many more miles per year.

"It is far cheaper to operate this service in an urban setting such as Ipswich. Once again the public is being let down," he added.

Some said they felt "lucky" that they had not been charged up until now.

"Everywhere else around Ipswich [in other districts] pays, so why do Ipswich residents whine about it?" said Richard Garrard on social media.

"The implementation of the charge [elsewhere] brought the same type of whiners out saying the same comments; it really has made zero difference to the usage."

Some argued the service had never been free because they believed the charge had previously come from their council tax.

Others argued it made sense to have the separate charge.

"If you don't have a garden you don't need to pay the potential alternative of a bigger increase in council tax," Sue Read said.

However as mentioned above, the council said the service was not linked to the amount you pay in council tax.

Concerns were also raised that the move would lead to an increase in waste being dumped illegally.

Neil MacDonald, Labour leader of Ipswich Borough Council, said it had "delayed" the change of policy for as long as possible.

"We are the last council locally to implement these charges," he explained.

"We are keeping the charges as low as we can for our residents and by implementing these charges we are ensuring that this council is in a financially sustainable position for the future, protecting other services which our residents rely on."

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