Content

RESOLVED: that Cabinet approved
the Resources and Waste Strategy.
 
REASONS RESOLVED:
·        
It is essential for the Council to have a
‘vision for waste services’ which will ensure that as
existing arrangements for West Northamptonshire’s waste and
street cleansing expire, the new arrangements are consistent with
the vision. The Strategy will provide a set of principles to guide
decisions regarding replacement arrangements which will help
facilitate sustainable and efficient waste services.
 
ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS:
The Council could have decided
not to develop a Resources and Waste Strategy at this time,
especially given the continued uncertainty about national
requirements for waste services. However, without the Strategy, the
Council may not have been able to take consistent decisions about
replacement arrangements as current contracts expire.
 
The Council may have decided to
take a different approach to developing the Resources and Waste
Strategy, and attempted to include solutions for all waste related
issues within the document. For example, whether the waste fleet of
vehicles should switch to an alternate fuel, or whether 3 weekly
collections should be implemented across West Northamptonshire.
However, taking this approach would have taken much longer to
develop the Strategy, which is required as soon as possible to
inform decisions about replacement arrangements.
 
The approach that has been
taken, to develop a vision for waste services and a set of 10
principles allows the Council to make service decisions about,
which will help implement the vision in a gradual way as existing
arrangements end. As noted earlier, where significant changes are
proposed, these will be the subject of a separate Cabinet
paper.