Garden tax coming to South Woodham

So the green waste charge, or 'Garden Tax' is coming in for residents from next year.

After a vote by Chelmsford City Council last night, the new standard charge for a brown bin of £60 (reduced for those on Council Tax support) will be brought in.

The vote was more or less along party lines with the Lib Dems voting for and Conservatives against.

As we said in our previous post, we sympathise with the Lib-Dem controlled Council for having to bring this charge in. They are facing years of poorly managed decline by the Conservatives and the new Government is showing no signs of improving their coffers for now. We do not think the Conservatives have a leg to stand on having introduced this charge in all of the councils they control in Essex where they didn't object.

As the Residents Party, we fear that the charge will not only harm our pockets, in terms of an effective additional £60 rise in council tax next year, but our environment, with more people now likely to incinerate their waste at worst or at best 'drive' it to the local recycling centre, causing more traffic on our roads.

Both represent  more pollution that we and our children will have to put up with.

We think our residents deserve more information on these impacts, so they were well known by all Councilors, because we believe residents deserve a proper explanation when such hard decisions are taken and the impacts they have. If communications aren't excellent on this roll out, encouraging people to pay for a bin, then we will all suffer.

You can watch the council meeting here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kuR48GeqmM

The vote is taken approximate 1'26" in to the recording.