Environmental and financial impact

Waste collection changes and fly-tipping

Changes to waste collections are not an excuse to fly-tip. It's illegal and irresponsible, and fines can be substantial.

• Our colleagues at Bracknell Forest Council didn’t see an increase in fly-tipping when they reduced the frequency of their rubbish collections.
• Our anti-social behaviour (ASB) team regularly crack down on fly-tippers and you should report any incidents to us.

The impact of carbon emissions by collection vehicles 

Our vehicles are currently divided into three sections – one for recycling, one for rubbish and a third for food. If one section fills up, the vehicle must return to the depot to empty it even if the others aren’t full.

• Under the changes we'll fill the two rear sections with only rubbish one week and with only recycling the next. This uses the space more efficiently and needs fewer trips to the tip, cutting carbon emissions.

Council tax

• It’s true that our residents pay a higher percentage of service costs than anywhere else, about 85 per cent, because we get less Government funding than any other unitary authority.
• However, council tax doesn’t just fund services we all use, like roads and waste. More than half is spent on helping children and adults with all kinds of care needs, including older people.
• You may not need these services now, but you or someone you love may need them one day - and we’ve got to prioritise them as we look to make essential savings and avoid financial disaster.

The extra council tax from new housing in the borough

We aren’t a business and don’t make a profit from more housing being built. New residents pay council tax but they also need services, so our costs go up as well as our income.

Housing developers 

We collect between £35,000 and £40,000 from developers for every new home built in the borough, which goes towards new schools, roads, community and leisure centres to meet residents’ needs.

• However, we aren’t allowed to put this towards the ongoing cost of services like waste collection, and it wouldn’t make sense as we need to provide communities with suitable infrastructure.

Why savings are needed

• The cost of everything we buy or build is increasing, as are annual costs like energy bills - just as they are for residents. Sadly, inflation hits us as hard as anybody else.
• For example, when we reduced the number of blue rubbish bags we provided from 80 to 54 a year, this didn’t save us a penny because the cost of producing each bag had increased so much.
• At the same time, we’ve been underfunded by the Government for many years because there is a perception that we’re better off and don’t need as much money.
• We’re lobbying for a fairer deal on this and supporting any residents affected by rising living costs.
• Other councils have effectively gone bankrupt recently, forcing them to make drastic cuts and hike council tax to recover. We’re determined not to let that happen here.

Other savings 

• We’re considering a range of savings across various services, as well as changing how we work and looking at our own practices to become as efficient as possible.
• Any active consultations on savings will be published on our Engage Wokingham Borough page, where you’ll be able to find our more and share your views.

You can also report a varity of issues from the Rubbish and recycling homepage.