New Hertfordshire County Council leader won’t advocate local government reform to unitary model
Hertfordshire currently operates on a two-tier system of local government – but there have been suggestions that a unitary council could save money
Thursday, 27th May 2021, 10:00 am
The new leader of Hertfordshire County Council has made it clear that he will not be pushing for local government reform in Hertfordshire.
Hertfordshire currently operates on a two-tier system of local government – with 10 district and borough councils and one county council.
But there have been suggestions that replacing them all with a single ‘unitary’ council could save up to £142million a year.
The data does show that a greater proportion of glass, cardboard, paper, plastic and metal is being recycled, compared to similar analysis five years ago.
But Mr Jones said there was still a lot to do, pointing particularly to the provision of waste food collection services.
As part of the survey, a specialist team scrutinised the contents of a number of ‘residual’ waste bins, taken from nine of the 10 Hertfordshire districts.
According to the provisional data, just over half of the contents of the residual bins in Stevenage could have been recycled – with around 15 per cent made up of dry recyclables and more than 35 per cent of ‘organics’.
“Where we currently stand we are about 54 per cent up on the same period last year.
“And as a result 2021 will be highest level of fly-tipping on record since 2012, which is really disappointing given that in 2019 we had he second lowest annual total reported for the Partnership.
“It’s a situation that’s replicated in other parts of the country, but there are others that have seen an overall reduction during the pandemic.”
According to the data more than 40 per cent of the fly-tipping incidents reported this year have been in Welwyn Hatfield or in Stevenage.
The monthly average of fly-tipping incidents in Welwyn Hatfield so far this year (2020/21) is 387, according to the data.