Hitchin’s Member of Parliament Bim Afolami has called on Labour and Liberal Democrat run North Herts Council to abandon plans unveiled recently to cut bin collections for local residents. The plans would see collections of general waste moved from 2 weekly to 3 weekly from 2025.
North Herts Council expects to save around £270,000 per year from these changes, just over 2% of the money they received from local people and businesses through Council Tax and Business Rates. In the Council’s consultation on their plans to reduce bin collections, just 24% of North Hertfordshire residents agreed that they would be able to manage their waste effectively with three weekly collections, opening up the possibility that more than three quarters of residents may have to contend with overflowing local bins.
Mr Afolami has written to the Leader of North Herts Council, Labour’s Cllr Elizabeth Dennis-Harburg, to share the concerns he has received from residents and ask the Council to reconsider their decision.
Bim Afolami MP said,
“Residents are rightly concerned about Labour and the Liberal Democrats’ plan to slash general waste bin collections down to just once every three weeks in North Hertfordshire. Bin collections are a vital service that residents pay for through their Council Tax – taxes which Labour and the Lib Dems have put up by nearly 10% since they took office in 2019.
“These three weekly collections would leave residents in Hitchin and the villages with the worst bin collection rota in the East of England. This means we could see increases in fly-tipping, litter lining the streets of North Hertfordshire, residents using footpaths having to dodge rubbish bags which don’t fit in overflowing bins, and an increase in rats and other public health problems in our towns and villages.
“It is vital that we avoid this blight on our area and have bin collections which will enable us to keep North Hertfordshire as somewhere residents can be proud to live. I am calling on Labour and the Liberal Democrats to reverse these planned cuts.”
