North Northamptonshire Council's garden waste charge decision could be reversed by opposition's last gasp bid

A last-gasp attempt to get the controversial £40 garden waste charge reversed has been launched by disgruntled North Northants Council members.

Last month, despite a tidal wave of local opposition, NNC’s ten-strong Tory executive ploughed ahead with plans to charge a £40 annual fee for garden waste collection.

People across North Northamptonshire had been raising opposition to the plan on social media and had bombarded councillors’ inboxes with objections for weeks since this newspaper revealed the plans in July.

But despite disquiet even among ardent party loyalists, executive members said that they had to make the ‘difficult decision’ in order to balance their books as central government continues to put the squeeze on local authority finances across the country.

Their decision appeared to be done and dusted, but in a mutiny cooked up after a meeting of the full council last week, members from across the whole political spectrum have now managed to force a call-in of the decision.

It means that the executive’s decision will now be tossed back to be thoroughly scrutinised by a separate cross-party committee chaired by Conservative Wendy Brackenbury (Thrapston) with significant representation from the authority’s Labour and Green Alliance groups.

Among members appealing for a call-in were Cllrs Simon Rielly (Labour, Oakley) and Ann Lee (Labour, Windmill). Cllr Rielly said: “Some of the decisions being made by this executive are greatly concerning, this being one of them.

"I am encouraged that we have been able to garner cross party support on this issue, which will allow the scrutiny commission to hold the executive to account.

"We call ourselves a listening council but how can that be? We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, with already imposed increases in taxi fares, imposed cuts to bus services and who knows what next? Our residents simply can't afford nor be expected to pay out more and more, especially now.”

More than 9,000 people took part in the council’s green waste consultation process and more than 80 per cent of them objected to the imposition of the green waste charge.

Cllr Rielly added: “It feels very much like this charge is being rushed through and passed on to our local residents to claw back revenue, lost in other way.”

The call-in means that the executive’s decision must now stay on ice before it goes back to the scrutiny commission for a thorough shake-down.

Cllr Martin Griffiths (Ind, Irchester) said: “Not one single constituent of mine has said they are happy about the way NNC has dealt with this.

"My inbox is full of correspondence from unhappy residents who are really suffering with the cost of living crisis and also complaining about the existing failing waste service collections in my ward, for many months.

“The final decision on charging for garden waste should be taken by full council so people can see where their elected representatives stand on this, and if they are listening.”

A North Northamptonshire Council spokesman said: “The decision by the council’s executive made on September 27 to harmonise the collection of garden waste across the area has been called in line with the council’s constitution.

“The authority’s monitoring officer will now ensure the call-in is reported to the next relevant available scrutiny meeting, in this case the scrutiny commission.

“The scrutiny commission will then consider the matter and then decide on the next course of action in accordance with the council’s constitution.”

What does a scrutiny commission do?

NNC’s scrutiny commission is a cross-party committee of councillors who review important decisions made by the authority. Most councils’ ruling parties appoint an opposition member as chair of their scrutiny bodies to ensure rigour and independence, but NNC controversially decided to appoint a Tory chair for their scrutiny commission.

They don’t have decision-making powers but they can order further analysis and make recommendations to the full council or the executive.

Decisions made by the executive can only be ‘called-in’ (sent to the scrutiny commission) after they have been made but before they have been implemented.

Any decision can be requested to be called-in if eight members of the council sign a note that is then handed to the monitoring officer.

After the scrutiny commission has considered the matter it can; make recommendations to the executive and ask it to consider them; refer the matter to full council; or take no further action which means the original decision stands.

No timeframe has yet been set for the scrutiny process to take place.