Agenda item

(To provide Members of the Lincolnshire waste Partnership with an opportunity to update the rest of the Partnership on any developments within their areas which may affect or be of interest to the Partnership as a whole)

Members of the Partnership were provided with the opportunity to update the rest of the Partners on any developments within their individual Districts which may be of interest, and the following was reported:

East Lindsey District Council – there were no changes to the service to report.  However, it was noted that the authority was facing additional pressures due to the removal of Cranberry Composting.  The additional costs could be in the region of £6,000.  The Partnership was advised that the County Council would cover this cost, as it was an operational issue.

City of Lincoln Council – there were no operational changes to report.  It was noted that the green waste scheme had been relaunched and had already exceeded last year's figures.  This was the third year of charging for collection of green waste and each year the number of people using the service had been tracked.  It was thought that these figures were encouraging.

West Lindsey District Council – recycling was being delivered to both Louth and Gainsborough Waste Transfer Stations, and this had freed up some capacity and so a re-routing exercise was being carried out.

It was also noted that the rental period on two depots was coming to an end, a review of all sites was currently underway.

It was also reported that there had been a lot of positive feedback regarding the new HWRC in Gainsborough.

Boston Borough Council – there were no changes to report, but it was noted that the Waste Transfer Station was going well.

North Kesteven District Council – a formal ban on green waste in residual waste would be introduced, due to the numbers of bins that had been rejected.

A waste policy document was due to go before the Executive for approval the following week, but it was noted that this document was made up of a number of different documents which had been pulled together including waste policy and service guarantees.  It was commented that this was being well received by councillors.  It was queried whether this could be brought to a future meeting of the Partnership.

It was also reported that officers would be attending a National Health and Safety working group with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and some of the documentation to be used had been developed in Lincolnshire, and this could be used to form a national approach.  It was also suggested that this documentation be brought to a future meeting of the Partnership.

South Kesteven District Council – it was reported that finance continued to be an issue following the loss of recycling credits, but there were transition payments left in the budget.

Contamination in recycling was becoming a bigger issue, and it was thought that recycling performance could drop by 5-6% if the levels of contamination continued.

South Holland District Council – the Green Bag Lottery Scheme had worked extremely well, and a 20% rise in material collected had been seen.  However, due to cost pressures it would not be continued and the last draw had taken place the previous week.  It was noted that the authority was still looking at operating a green waste collection service.

Lincolnshire County Council – income had been received for last year from the textiles collected at recycling centres by the Salvation Army.

Bourne Household Waste Recycling Centre Business Case had been approved, and Councillor Shore had signed off the decision.  It would be going to the Planning and Regulation Committee on 7 September 2015.  Work was progressing with the aim for work to commence on site by the end of October 2015.

It was reported that the Saturday service in Stamford would continue for 2015/16.

A discussion took place regarding the potential for other HWRC's around the county, as it had been reported that there were still plans for a HWRC in Long Sutton, however problems had been encountered in finding a suitable site.  There were also similar issues in Mablethorpe, as a suitable site could not be found.  In terms of funding, it was reported that the County Council had a sum of money set aside for capital projects (£15m), which could be bid for through the submission of a business case, and if approved, the funds would be allocated.  If a suitable site could be found by ELDC, then its suitability would be assessed and a business case put forward to this fund if it was found to be suitable.  It was queried whether the information that had been collated for the last site which had proved unsuitable could be provided as it would be useful to know what to look for when searching for a site.  It was also suggested that the report for Bourne would be useful as well, and could this be shared with the whole partnership.  The Group Manager for Environmental Services also agreed to look for any correspondence in relation to why a previous site identified in Mablethorpe had been deemed unsuitable.