Council’s bid to avoid recycling fines will come at a high price

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Senior councillors in Caerphilly have backed plans to buy and set up a new waste depot, to tackle the county borough’s low recycling rates.

But the clock is ticking on a potential deal for a site, which Caerphilly County Borough Council must effectively agree to buy in October or the landowner will reportedly “pursue other options”.

The depot will be key to the council’s waste strategy, launched after it recorded Wales’ worst recycling rates in 2023.

Senior councillors this week endorsed a plan to borrow around £24 million to fund the strategy, including the purchase of the depot site.

Cllr Chris Morgan, the cabinet member for waste, said the strategy “sets out the strategic direction and longer-term plan to ensure the council meets and exceeds its statutory performance targets”.

The local authority has to increase its recycling rates to 70% next spring or face millions of pounds in Welsh Government fines.

Those improvements, and the need to comply with new government rules on businesses sorting their recycling, mean the council has to make major upgrades to its waste infrastructure.

The location of the chosen depot site remains secret while negotiations continue, but a deal is expected to be wrapped up soon.

The council’s cabinet met on Wednesday September 18 to hear more about the strategy to drive up recycling rates.

This includes a plan to make residents sort their recycling at home – although a date for this has not yet been set.

Changes to bin collections, garden waste services and tip opening hours could all be on the cards in future, too, following the public consultation on various proposals.

These policies won’t come cheap, but the council is effectively caught between a rock and a hard place, as it must either decide to spend heavily now to fix its recycling problems, or run the risk of being hit with fines every year for missing national targets.

At current performance levels, Caerphilly Council could face annual fines of £2.7m.

It has calculated that borrowing costs on a 25-year loan will be “broadly in line” with what it would have to otherwise pay in fines, and comes with the bonus of securing better recycling infrastructure, should the government decide to further increase its targets in future years.

At the cabinet meeting, Mark Williams, the council’s corporate director for the environment, said the Welsh Government had confirmed it would contribute 60% of the total funding.

That leaves the council to foot the remaining £24.8m to realise its waste strategy.

Cllr Sean Morgan, who leads the local authority, said the borrowing “is just going to add to our woes”, in light of an estimated £45m of savings Caerphilly Council needs to make over the next two years.

Head of finance, Steve Harris, agreed but said doing nothing would leave the council open to those multi-million pound annual fines.