Council forced to dig into its reserves to fund new waste collection service

At a South Kesteven District Council cabinet meeting on Tuesday (September 9), councillors heard that the government has not provided sufficient funding to fund the full rollout of the new service, with the local authority having to cover the additional costs.

This service will ensure that food waste is diverted out of residents’ black bins (waste) and disposed of through anaerobic digestion to be more environmentally friendly.

The district council has approved a £542,195 budget for the 2025/26 financial year to pay for the rollout of the weekly food waste collection service.

The government granted the district council £400,125.45 – but that means that the council has had to find an extra £142,069.55 from the waste service reserves to cover the full costs.

It also approved an increase to the ‘vehicle replacement capital budget’ of £171,850 from the same reserve to fund the food waste collection vehicles and caddies.

Coun Rhys Baker, cabinet member for the environment and waste, told members that the service was a policy that the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had ordered the council to implement.

The independent councillor, who represents the Bourne Austerby ward, said: “This is a mandatory policy. We cannot opt out of this.

“This has been recommended by Defra to make food waste services more cost effective and efficient.”

Coun Baker went on to say that the district council is already considering whether it would be able to afford to keep funding the service in future years.

He added: “These funds are not in the real world. They are not going to cover the actual costs which will be incurred in providing this service.

“There’s no right to appeal. The government will give us a budget and we have to have to deliver the service, whether or not that budget is sufficient.

“We’re already having discussions about whether we will be able to fund this going forward.”

Kay Boasman, head of waste management and market services at the district council, told members that the government had got its calculations wrong.

Ms Boasman said: “The government has used the wrong number of households for the district.

“They also used an average uptake figure of 60% but we’ve done our own investigation into this and found the district has a much higher uptake of 85%.

“We’ve put this to them to make sure that we’re considered for a more developed service.”

Richard Wyles, deputy chief executive at the district council, told members that the government’s funding doesn’t cover the ‘true cost’ of implementing the service.

He said: “That is why we’re having to dig into our reserves to fund this.

“The government has assured us that they are providing the full funding but this doesn’t cover the full costs. We don’t know if we will get the full funding for this in the future.”

Leader of the district council Coun Ashley Baxter, who represents Market Deeping and West Deeping, said the council wanted to implement the service but didn’t feel it should have to pay extra for it.

Coun Baxter, who chaired the meeting, added: “This is a green measure and it is aimed at providing improvements. As a council, we want to do this but we don’t think that we should be told to do something that we have to pay for ourselves.”

Councillors backed the funding ahead of the service being rolled out in April 2026.