Weekly Bin Collections will continue despite Government pressure to cut to fortnightly
Kite says it will be the Council, not residents, who take the hit of cost cutting in drive to save £1m
Dartford Council Leader Jeremy Kite has said that he will not allow a poor Government grant settlement to divert his plans to provide new facilities for local people or abandon the services that local people want – like weekly bin collections. Instead, the Council will continue to find savings from within even it means some lean times at the Civic Centre.
“I am relatively new to this Council leadership game but I have already cottoned on to the fact that when the Government want you to do something they are pretty ruthless at forcing you to do it – even if local people vote for something else.”
“It’s clear, for example, that they didn’t like being shown up by our ‘Big Bin Vote’ which proved that local people didn’t trust their claims that fortnightly waste collections were safe and hygienic. Despite the overwhelming vote in favour of the retention of weekly collections, the Government still give us a grant settlement based on lower spending – just about enough to fund a collection every fortnight.”
“I won’t give in to this sort of bullying. We WILL find the money from savings inside the Civic Centre so it will be US that takes the hit, NOT residents. It means restructuring the way we do things and perhaps even cutting our staff but I am determined that our core services will be protected.”
