Councillor Alastair Majury on Update on Waste Transformation Discussion at Stirling Council

At the meeting of Stirling Council on 4th March 2021, the Stirling Conservative group in a collaborative and cross-party working spirit, decided to accept the above amendment to our original motion.

The Green Councillor and an independent councillor proposed an amended.

Amended Motion:

Amendment

Item 15 — Motion on Changes to Waste Collection Service

1. Council notes that its decision on the 30th June to reduce the frequency of waste collection has had a significant adverse public response (No change).

2. Council further notes that many people in Stirling are unhappy with the introduction of a charge for garden waste collection (No change).

3. Council resolves to postpone until 1 October 2021 the waste collection changes whilst a review takes place alongside a full consultation with the public. Any amended proposals will come back to Full Council for a decision.

As a reminder our original motion was:

As reminder the proposals from the SNP & Labour administration include:

The £35 Charge for Garden Waste

Stirling Council will introduce a charge for garden waste from April 1st. Residents who pay the fee will have a sticker to put on their brown bin to show that their garden waste can be collected. Residents without the sticker will still be able to put food waste in the brown bin. A 100% concession for council tax benefit recipients and those with a registered mental impairment has been agreed.

The Reduction in the frequency of waste collection from 2 weekly to 4 weekly

Stirling Council will reduce the frequency of collection of the grey residual waste bin from every 4 weeks to every 2 weeks. Larger bins are available for larger families and additional E-Bin waste collection is available for those who generate non hazardous medical waste and nappies.

And the lack of a community consultation before announcing these plans

o There was no consultation on the options that were put before members in June. No formal or informal consultation had taken place on details of the proposed scheme

o A consultation would have revealed the strength of public opinion on this change

o Consultation would have also revealed many flaws with the proposals, especially for medical waste, large families, more vulnerable people and concessionary schemes.

o The community consultation that is often cited as part of the decision making contained no proposals and showed that people liked the current frequency of collection, although wanted to see the green bin more frequently emptied and the blue bin less frequently collected.

o The lack of a community consultation has seriously dented Stirling Council’s reputation and made it look like we do not listen to public opinion.

Unfortunately an independent councillor decided to vote with the administration against the amendment meaning that it failed by 11 votes to 10, whilst if the independent councillor had voted with the rest of the opposition then the amended motion would have succeeded by 11 votes to 10.

Alastair Majury Chartered MCSI, is also a director of Majury Change Management Ltd is a highly experienced Senior Business Analyst / Data Scientist with a proven track record of success planning, developing, implementing and delivering migrations, organisational change, regulatory, legislative, and process improvements for global financial organisations, covering Retail Banking, Investment Banking, Wealth Management, and Life & Pensions.