Havering Council's leader, Cllr Ray Morgon, has written to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to financially support Havering to introduce new food waste collections.
The letter reads:
Dear Minister,
I am writing with regards to the implementation of the food waste collection service, which is driven by the Environment Act 2021.
As you know, this legislation mandates that we must deliver a weekly food recycling service to all households by April 2026.
To do this, we have to buy the food caddies, appropriate vehicles and put together the associated infrastructure to collect from the homes of our residents.
However, we have only been given a £1.9 million capital grant to help cover costs, a shortfall of approximately £1.3 million.
We will therefore have to bridge the gap, and as an authority which is already under special financial circumstances – with a capitalisation directive – it will obviously add additional strain to our already overstretched budgets.
This once again demonstrates that when legislation is passed, full considerations needs to be given to the financial implications that any new laws place upon Councils.
I know you will be announcing revenue grants to cover transitional and operational costs, but the shortfall in funding is likely to mean that we may not be able to comply fully with the legislation.
Therefore, I would like you to review our grant to match what is required to deliver this service.
We believe we will need an additional circa £1.3 million in capital funding and circa £4 million per annum in revenue funding.
We are committed to ensuring we do our bit to towards achieving our climate change goals, improving our environment and complying with government legislation, but we do need to be given the right level of funding to achieve this goal.
Yours sincerely,
Councillor Ray Morgon
Leader of the Council