Cheshire West Recycling celebrates a successful first year

Cheshire West & Chester has been Labour-led since the 2015 Local Elections, with Labour inheriting a Tory-led Council which was focused on privatisation.

Labour values at Cheshire West & Chester have ensured that privatisation is being challenged, with waste collection moving from a failed private contract to Cheshire West Recycling, a Local Authority Trading Organisation (LATO) with co-operative principles. This ensures staff have good pay and fair contracts, and has delivered a better service for residents by making it staff-led. It also opens the door to contracted services in the future, ensuring a sustainable service.

Cllr Karen Shore, Cabinet Member for Environment, said: “I am incredibly proud of the success of Cheshire West Recycling and would like to thank all staff for their efforts. A Council-operated waste service is better for residents & staff, and the first anniversary of Cheshire West Recycling shows the success of this new approach.”

The Tories decided to outsource waste collection to Kier and the simple truth is that their decision and ideology failed. It’d be easy to shift the blame to individual companies like Kier, but the problem is not with the companies, it’s with the Tory approach. Their privatisation of essential services is an irresponsible choice, we’ve seen the same outsourcing failures nationally with the £22bn Tory Government failure with Track & Trace. The Tory focus on privatisation pretends that putting services out to the private sector reduces costs, improves quality and delivers higher pay to staff. The reality is that none of these supposed benefits are realised through privatisation.

Cllr Karen Shore, Cabinet Member for Environment, adds: “When the Tories signed over waste collection services to Kier they included no plans for extra housing or route changes. The Tories regularly tell people that insourcing is a waste of money due to increased costs, but the costs of their contract negotiation, failure and public bailout are the real waste.”

It was left to Labour to pick up the pieces of Tory failure, establishing Cheshire West Recycling, a wholly-owned Council company with a co-operative approach to employment. In its first year of operation, Cheshire West Recycling has risen from the ashes of Tory privatisation, operating as a not-for-profit service serving communities, not shareholders. All staff are paid the Local Living Wage - it is only Labour which recognises good pay for staff is a necessity not a luxury. The included graphics illustrate the successes achieved by Cheshire West Recycling over the past year.

Cllr Karen Shore concludes: “The Tories see profit as private and failure as a public consequence, viewing good pay for staff as something society cannot afford. Good pay is essential to good service for our residents, and this is precisely what Cheshire West Recycling has delivered. We’ll be looking at ways to encourage even more recycling and will be guided by the response to our recently concluded waste strategy consultation.”