Review of Waste Haulage in Highland to save £150,000

14th February 2019

Highland council agreed today 14th February 2019 to save £150,000 over the next two years in the complicated area of waste haulage contracts. What may seem like a simple hing to deal with is not an easy subject to easy with effectively as it affects every home an business in Highland. The council has made several changes in recent years to improve the effectiveness of the service while trying to fit in with decreasing budgets.

As part of the overall review of the Council's Waste Strategy there will be analysis undertaken of the most cost effective way to deliver waste haulage and processing activities.

An option that will be considered is taking some of the activity back in-house (to be reviewed from Sept 19).

The Council has 17 arrangements for the processing and haulage of its waste and recyclable material throughout the Highlands. The arrangements being considered through this proposal relate to residual waste disposal and haulage in Lochaber and Easter Ross.

In Lochaber the Council disposes of its residual waste and delivers its blue bin material for onward transport at the Duisky landfill site, operated by a private sector contractor. In order to reduce our reliance on the private sector, and to reduce revenue expenditure, the service is seeking to build a new Council-operated Waste Transfer Station in Lochaber to bulk up the waste and blue bin material collected in Lochaber for onward haulage to Seater Landfill site in Caithness (residual waste), and Binn Farm in Perth (blue material). The service is in advanced negotiations with the owner of the preferred site to provide the new facility, which should be operational by September 2019. It is anticipated that this change can deliver the following savings to the Council:

a. Year 1, part year implementation = £25k saving

b. Year 2, full year implementation = further saving of £25k in addition to year 1 saving

Total saving in Lochaber over years 1 and 2 = £50k, providing that the new Waste Transfer Station is operational by that date. We are working with colleagues in D&I to deliver this facility within this timescale.

In Easter Ross the Council already has a Waste Transfer Station at Invergordon which bulks up blue bin material and garden waste collected in Caithness, Sutherland and Ross and Cromarty for onward haulage to processors in the Central Belt/ North of England (blue bin material) and Aberdeenshire (garden waste). The proposal is that the residual waste currently delivered to a private sector site in Evanton for haulage to Seater landfill site is delivered to the Invergordon facility for onward haulage. It is anticipated that this change can deliver the following savings to the Council:

a. Year 1, part year implementation = £50k saving

b. Year 2, full year implementation = further saving of £50k in addition to year 1 saving

Total saving in Easter Ross over years 1 and 2 = £100k. This is dependent on a new lease being agreed with the current landlords. Colleagues in D&I are facilitating this.

The existing contractors will be informed of our proposals in early 2019 to allow us to identify any TUPE implications. This will allow sufficient time for any transfer of employees into the Council to take place.

The introduction on the ban on landfilling waste on 1 January 2021 may cause waste disposal costs to increase, which could affect the waste disposal budget for 2021/22 onwards. This would have an effect on this saving proposal but this is currently an unknown risk.

To see the full range of cuts and changes in the budget go to -

https://www.highland.gov.uk/meetings/meeting/4084/highland_council