THE biggest changes in West Somerset’s waste services for ten years, aimed at improving efficiency and cutting costs, have been backed by the district council’s cabinet.

The major shake-up, planned for 2018-23, includes ending Somerset Waste Partnership’s (SWP) contract with waste collections contractor Kier Environmental Services 18 months early in March 2020 and replacing the ageing vehicle fleet with state-of-the-art recycling and rubbish trucks.

A new draft business plan would bring tenders for a new ‘Recycle More’ long-term kerbside waste collections contract involving more recycling and electricity generation from waste at a new facility in Avonmouth.

In a report, Chris Hall, the council’s assistant director operational delivery, and SWP managing director Mickey Green said that the original plan was to operate the Recycle More scheme with Kier but it had not been possible to reach acceptable terms with them.

Julian Tranter, managing director of Kier Environmental Services, said that to allow the partnership to go ahead with its Recycle More strategy and invest in new vehicles it had been mutually agreed to end the contract in March 2020.

"We continue to work closely together to provide a high quality service for residents and stability for our teams during this time,” he added.