New Contract for Waste Collection

NHDC is progressing with the new contract for the household waste collection service, jointly with East Herts. The winning bidder was a company called Urbaser who, while new to North Herts are the third largest environmental services provider across Europe. The contract for basic waste collection has been agreed with a more minor part of the contract to be signed. The contract represents a significant saving for Council Tax payers. It is expected that most operatives will transfer their employment from Veolia.

There has been a lot of discussion about the decision of the Council to charge £40 per bin per year for garden waste collection from the 2018 civic year. Residents will be able to share a bin (and its cost) with a neighbour when the volume of garden waste produced does not warrant paying for a whole bin, and can also have more than one bin. The charge for brown bin collection is not expected to fully offset the cost of collection, but will help to reduce the serious revenue deficit NHDC has, with savings of £4.2m per year targeted by 2021/22.

Food waste will be collected from new, larger, caddies weekly: an improvement in the level of service compared to today. Home composting is a very green alternative to paying for brown bin collection. The Hertfordshire WasteAware Partnership provides home compost bins to Hertfordshire residents at subsidized prices. To order a compost bin call 0844 571 4444 or visit www.herts.getcomposting.com.

NHDC Local Plan - Examination

The Examination in Public of the Local Plan started on the 13th November, the Inspector is Simon Berkeley. The first couple of weeks focus on strategic matters, such as the duty of NHDC to cooperate with adjoining authorities to take housing that they themselves cannot deliver (this especially applies to Luton), and then on the Countryside and Green Belt, the housing mix and the spatial distribution of new housing. Evidence is on the deliverability of the plan and the 'high level' issues: i.e. without any reference to individual sites or the allocations to them.

The allocations to individual sites will be examined in Week 6 of the enquiry, the sites around Knebworth specifically being examined on the morning of Monday 26th February. These sessions are all open to the public and are held in the Icknield Centre, Icknield Way in Letchworth. Full details are on NHDC’s website. # Merry Christmas -

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Subscriptions for the Parish News become due again this month. Please encourage your neighbours to subscribe to this valuable resource, the only one of its kind for the village of Knebworth.