MID Devon councillors have been reassured the district won’t become “dirty or untidy” as fears mount over rubbish piling up in town centres once “side waste” collections are scrapped in a month.

Mid Devon District Council will be delivering a “comprehensive communications programme” before it stops collecting extra waste left by residents in additional to their wheelie bins from Sunday, October 1, but officers said this week if they have to take enforcement action, they will.

The council has collected side waste since last October when it introduced its three weekly “Bin-it 123” residual waste scheme to help it bed in. 

Since then, recycling rates have increased by 4.5 per cent to 59 per cent. But now officers say the side waste collection is an “unnecessary resource and costing more”.

Speaking at the council’s cabinet meeting this week, Cllr James Buczkowski (Lib Dem, Cullompton St Andrews) said: “I support the principle of stopping the side waste collections, but I am concerned about waste being left especially in common collection points.

“If rubbish is left outside someone’s house, it is easy to knock on the door but there are a number of areas, particularly in Cullompton, and all over the district where we have these common collection points where it will be very difficult to identify who the culprit is.

“I would like some reassurance that this waste won’t be left there for three weeks, as it will just appear and no-one will take responsibility for it and we absolutely cannot allow our streets to have rubbish piling up.”

Those not complying with rules will be spoken to in the first instance, then issued warnings, enforcement action and, if it continues, they will be fined.

The council’s corporate manager for waste, Matthew Page, said: “The important message in all of this is that we are not going to let the district become dirty or untidy. 

“We will stay on top of the situation.

“What we are asking for is the district to be fully on top of the scheme. 

“The key thing is to keep the communication going and making sure residents have all the bins and containers they need. 

“We have seen an increase in people requesting more containers and that is encouraging.”

He said the waste team would be doing site visits where they know there are problems and where they could anticipate problems in order to be proactive. There would also be more school visits.

Cabinet member for environment, Cllr Josh Wright (Lib Dem, Silverton) said: “The key to this is residents, while it seems quite draconian refusing to collect this side waste what it should do is encourage more conversations. 

“In my four years of being on the council I know it will be the supportive nature of our waste services which will drive this forward.”

The council’s cabinet supported plans to end the side waste collections and to postpone the trial of the weekly recycling collection to allow more time to assess the impact of “Bin-It 123”. 

Councillors were told that excellence in recycling was not dependant on a weekly service as many of the top recycling authorities still operated a two weekly scheme.

The postponement will save the council £30,000. 

If weekly collections go ahead at a later date the service will have to move to a larger site costing the council in the region of £1.4-million.

Local authorities are currently waiting on the government to announce its future plans for waste and recycling.