Parliament voices concern over Norfolk HWRC public charge

A letter sent from MPs to Norfolk County Council on 28 February has expressed concern over the council’s proposed £2 public charge for the use of nine household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs).

The letter, written by Minister for Resource Management Dan Rogerson and Minister for Local Government Brandon Lewis, said this ‘backdoor bin charge’ would inconvenience local council tax paying residents, as well as ‘creating perverse incentives’.

They also claimed the charge would ‘increase the risk of fly-tipping, harming the local environment and diverting taxpayers’ money to clean up the mess’.

If established, a £2 charge would be incurred on residents wanting to use nine of the county’s 20 HWRCs from April 2015.  

The letter states that a charge for the use of HWRCs would be disruptive to both the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Communities and Local Government’s (DCLG) interests of ‘making it easy for people to recycle’ as it would cause ‘householders to simply put such items in their residual waste bins, so they end up in landfill’.

It continues to say that the proposals also conflict with section 51 of the Environmental Protection Act, which states ‘local authorities have a duty to provide sites for the deposit of household waste. Where such sites are provided in fulfilment of this duty, waste must be accepted free of charge’.

They said they were ‘interested’ to hear how Norfolk County Council would ‘square its charging proposals’ with the requirements of the act.

Parliament ‘firmly believes’ that the HWRC charge is against the interests of householders and the government’s environmental concerns, and that Norfolk County Council should ‘seriously revisit’ its thinking.

As well as the £2 HWRC charge, other waste proposals have been made by the council such as introducing a charge for the disposing of tyres, and renegotiating its waste disposal contract with Cory Wheelabrator (the incinerator proposals for which have already seen legal wrangling).

These proposals aim to fill a predicted £189-million gap in funding for services under the council’s budget for 2014-17. 

Norfolk County Council Cabinet Member for Finance Steve Morphew said the council doesn’t think it’s possible to ‘protect all the services many people rely on when there are such reductions in funding and increases in demand’.  

Read the MPs’ full letter, or find out more about the Norfolk County Council’s proposed recycling changes.