Brent's new Labour Administration will abolish the twenty five pound charge for bulky item collections from the 1st October. Amazingly, Paul Lorber and Brent Liberal Democrats still want the charge to remain and have suggested that our plans for its abolition should be scrapped. So I guess it makes sense to go through the arguments again.
Brent had free collections until July 2007. The introduction of the charge by the Lib Dems saw an immediate fall in the number of people using the service. Special collections fell by two thirds and have drifted down further since. This meant that the expected income from the service never materialised. The initial estimate was 275k and the actual income was about 53k in the first year. I don't think it has ever gone higher than that, so in fiscal terms the charge was a failure.
One also has to ask where all these items that the Council used to collect are now going. The Council reckons that even the 25 charge was a more or less subsidised rate. If so, any private contractor who offered a lesser rate would be trading at a loss. Of course, this would only remain true if the contractor got rid of the item legitimately. If the private contractor drives round the corner and dumps it somewhere, he is effectively getting the Council to pay for disposal, and pocketing whatever the householder gave him. This, I suspect, is what has been happening.
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