Committee members to decide on future waste contract
A report that will be considered by Wirral Council’s Environment, Climate Emergency and Transport Committee next week is recommending that the council’s waste collection and street cleansing service should continue to be provided by an external specialist.
With the current contract with Biffa ending in August 2027 – and no scope to extend further – the council has been developing a Full Business Case (FBC) on the preferred model for providing the service in the future.
The committee agreed that in developing the FBC the focus should be on three potential new service delivery options – a fully outsourced contract; providing the service through a Local Area Trading Company (LATCo); and a mixed model, outsourcing the waste collection service but bringing street cleansing back in-house.
Having completed the work on the Full Business Case, which included both financial and qualitative assessments of each of the three options, the favoured option in terms of cost and risk is the fully outsourced option. This was also the option that would best align with the Council Plan and the Liverpool Region Zero Waste 2040 Strategic Framework.
When they meet on January 27th, member of the committee will be asked to approve the FBC for outsourcing waste collection and street cleansing services under a new contract, as well as authorise the Director of Neighbourhood Services to begin a competitive tendering exercise for the new contract and report back to the committee after the tender process has concluded.
All of the potential options considered included scope to provide all households with a separate weekly collection of food waste, as this will be a legal obligation from 2026.
In parallel to the work being done on the Waste Collection and Street Cleansing contract, a new Waste Management Strategy is also being developed, to capture other changes in legislation and ensure that the Council’s waste collection service going forward is fit for purpose to deliver the climate emergency and zero waste targets. An update on the new Waste Management Strategy will be presented to the Committee in March 2025.
