New £632m contract to change rubbish collection

Changes to how the rubbish for 190,000 Surrey households is collected are coming after a new £632m waste contract was agreed.

For the past decade bins in Surrey Heath, Woking, Runnymede and Elmbridge have been collected under a joint waste partnership, but that contract comes to an end this year after Amey decided it was leaving the industry.

Veolia will take its place in a deal that could last up to 21 years, although it will first run for an initial seven-year period.

The councils said they had carried out a review of collection services and would be making changes to how frequently streets were cleaned and a new bookable service to collect small electrical items, batteries and textiles.

The customer service centre, previously based in Liverpool, will now also move to Surrey as part of the deal, reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The councils said they had carried out a review of collection services and found demand had increased to the point where changes would need to be made to operational arrangements.

Conservative councillor Valerie White expressed concern over the possible changes of collection dates, which she said could turn into a "major situation".

She said any collection date change should be "well advertised".

Councillor Morgan Rise, Liberal Democrat, said any changes would not be immediate but would take place after an optimisation process.

"I can't specify the time period but I would agree that there should be a significant amount of time between notification and the change," he said.

"The exact details of how those changes would be communicated would be the responsibility of the new unitary councils coming into effect."

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