Your views on our proposal to change the construction and demolition waste concession at recycling centres

Overview

Norfolk County Council plays a huge part in people’s lives – ensuring children and young people have the best start in life, protecting vulnerable people, maintaining a safe road system and helping to create a thriving economy.  We’ll continue to spend over a billion pounds every year providing public services that you, your family and friends use every day.

Norfolk is facing some big challenges though.  Our population is growing, people are generally living longer and the type of services that people need is changing.  And as you know, the cost of living is going up.  As things become more expensive we also have higher costs, and the amount of money we have coming in isn’t keeping up.  At the same time the grant that central government gives us has fallen by £189 million since 2011 and is expected to fall to zero by 2021.

Even though we are proposing to increase council tax next year, the amount of money we hope to raise wouldn’t be enough to balance our budget.  This means we have to make some difficult decisions about how we spend your money.

Since 2011 we have saved £334 million.  However, we now need to save a further £125 million by 2021. 

We have therefore been looking at many options for saving money including on our recycling services.

Currently any Norfolk resident is allowed to take the equivalent of one 80 litre sack (the size of a standard black bin bag), or one large item of DIY type construction and demolition waste to the recycling centre every week. This includes materials such as rubble, plasterboard and flat glass and items such as fence panels, doors, fitted units and bathroom suites - basically fixtures and fittings to a house.

At the moment we choose to provide this service.  However, under the law we don’t have to provide a free service for disposing of this kind of waste. 

In order to make savings we are therefore proposing to change our policy of allowing people to dispose of one bag or one item of DIY type construction and demolition waste free of charge.  We are proposing to charge for this type of material.  If our proposal went ahead we estimate it would save us at least £180,000 in 2018/19.

Why your views matter

We want to find out what people think about our proposal and how it might affect them if it went ahead.  Your views will help us to decide whether we should change the construction and demolition waste concession at recycling centres.

We are consulting through:

- This online consultation, which is also available as a paper copy.

We will feed back the findings from our consultation to our county councillors as part of the evidence they will use to help them come to a decision about our proposals.

Find out more and have your say online by clicking on the feedback form below.

If you need a copy of this consultation document on paper or in a different format please email haveyoursay@norfolk.gov.uk

What happens next

We will take a report about the findings to this consultation to our Environment, Development and Transport Committee on 19 January 2018.  The report will feedback what people have told us about the potential impact of our proposal.  The feedback will also be reported at Full Council on 12 February 2018.  Members will use this as part of the evidence they take into account when making a decision about what savings to make.