In the 2007 local elections across South Oxfordshire, the Conservative Party fought the election with a promise that they would not move to a two weekly collection of waste. They received a massive election endorsement and now have over 90% of the Councillors at South Oxfordshire District Council. Within a year they had tabled a project to move to two weekly collections.

The consultation was of dubious quality – only 1.2% of the South Oxfordshire residents were consulted and the SODC questionnaire produced only 1580 responses with a bias towards middle class estates. There was little evidence of consultation on the problem areas of the scheme – flats, terraced houses, and nappies.

As soon as SODC plans were identified and knowing that it would be a contentious issue, HRG set up the Waste Action Group (WAG). WAG quickly came to an overriding conculsion that it was unlikely to be able to reverse the SODC decision on waste collection because the scheme was too far progressed. Therefore WAG set these goals:

- To educate the people of Henley as to what was going to happen in June 2009.
- To ensure that all parts of the Henley Community were treated fairly.
- To make contact with opinion formers in other communities who have shown
   that they were opposed to the new waste collection scheme.

The Waste Action Group met with SODC officers and the chosen contractor, Verdant, until the implementation date. As a result of acting as a town consultative body WAG was able to develop a street by street operational plan, train Town Council staff to answer resident’s demanding questions and try to ally the anxieties of a majority of residents. Our most successful accomplishment was to decisively intervene in moving many flat dwellers and terraces, with limited access or space, into sack collections and away from bins. Today 25% of the Town’s residents have a sack collection – the initial sack collection figure was 7%.

WAG did not disband after implementation date. SODC incurred problems in getting Verdant to settle down into their collection system. WAG were a driving force in getting SODC to agree that any problems would be resolved as soon as possible.

WAG was effective during the year in changing the mindset of SODC officers, challenging SODC leaders on what their policy meant in implementation at the local community level, and ensuring that all Henley residents were given a fair deal on waste collection.

There were still some residents who disagreed strongly with the SODC plans who demonstrated their anger at the Town Hall.

HRG believes that WAG worked as hard as possible to get the best deal for Henley. In the main we now have a collection system that is working and delivering enhanced recycling rates. We acknowledge that there are still issues with the scheme and we will keep working to resolve these.

If you are still unhappy about the system, please email us giving details.