A RECOMMENDATION has been made for Denbighshire County Council to approve an additional £2.366million of funding for its new waste collection system.

The council’s cabinet will hold a special meeting at 2pm tomorrow (October 1) to consider a report by Cllr Barry Mellor, lead member for environment and transport, seeking approval of additional resources to help the new service operate as envisaged.

On June 3, the council implemented changes to recycling and waste collections, including new containers and weekly collections for recyclable materials, and the scrapping of the blue wheelie bin.

Since then, some residents have been required to separate their “dry” recycling using a new three-tier “Trolibocs”.

But the council, which has previously claimed the new scheme would save it £400-500K per year, has issued multiple apologies for residents not having their bins collected on time since the new system began.

Cllr Mellor’s report to the cabinet makes the following recommendations:

  • That cabinet approves an additional £1.299m in capital expenditure for obtaining eight additional recycling vehicles, funded by prudential borrowing.
  • That cabinet approves an additional £1.067m of revenue costs to cover additional collection rounds, to ensure the service change can deliver as planned on a sustainable footing.
  • That cabinet agrees that the decision be implemented immediately without “call-in”.

The costs for the service change was originally approved by the council’s cabinet in December 2018, and subsequently reviewed in April 2022.

But, Cllr Mellor’s report added, “It soon became apparent after the roll-out of the new service that some of the assumptions were flawed, the main issue being some of the daily recycling rounds had been designed with too many properties requiring collection.

“This meant we were seeing several rounds per day not completing, resulting in large and unacceptable numbers of missed collections.”

Cllr Mellor added in his report that a “full review” of the planning and implementation of the new system will take place, which will involve both elected members and residents’ input.

If the recommendations are approved, a formal request will be made to Welsh Government for additional capital funding to assist with the cost of purchasing the eight extra vehicles.

The extra £1.067m in revenue costs, meanwhile, would comprise spending £697,000 on employees and £370,000 on vehicles.