Issue - meetings

Report to follow.

Members were advised that the 2020/21 capital programme included provision for the replacement of a substantial proportion of the council’s refuse vehicle fleet. The expected economic life span of a refuse collection vehicle was seven years. This was because of the heavy nature of the work and type of load the vehicles carried. The vehicles to be replaced were purchased in 2013. It would soon be no longer economical to maintain these vehicles and this would leave the council unable to deliver a full household waste service if they were not replaced.

For the efficient delivery of the in-house waste and recycling service, a comprehensive vehicle replacement programme was necessary in order to meet statutory obligations in terms of the collection of household waste as required by the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The option for leasing rather than purchasing vehicles was explored before the current capital programme was approved; however this would have a far higher cost and offered less flexibility to the council as the end user.

Cabinet noted that it was important that the decision to purchase these refuse collection vehicles was expedited due to the long lead time of 40 weeks from placing the contract to receiving the vehicles. Such types of vehicles were always built to order. This lead time had increased substantially as a result of the pandemic which had impacted on the supplier’s manufacturing plant. The new open back vehicles had a load capacity of almost 10 tonnes compared with just over 6 tonnes for some of the fleet that they would be replacing. This would reduce the frequency of trips to the disposal site. The new vehicles were all open back which would improve resilience as the whole fleet would be interchangeable.

Cabinet further noted that six of the eleven vehicles to be replaced required extensive body refurbishments eighteen months ago. Those vehicles were now suffering similar wearing problems again. This issue would need to be addressed before a new fleet was delivered and officers were considering interim options. Again it was imperative that the new vehicles were ordered expeditiously to reduce the duration and cost of any interim measures to be put in place and in order to protect the resilience of this statutory service.

Councillor Hart and Councillor Towning spoke under Council Procedure 20.1.

Councillor Albon proposed, Councillor Everitt seconded and Cabinet approved Option 1 in the Cabinet report, which was to commit £2.2m from this year’s approved capital programme budget on the purchase of 11No. refuse freighters.