No tax refund for rubbish bin collection

Dudley’s finance chief has ruled out a council tax refund for people whose bins are not being collected on time.

At a meeting of Dudley Council on July 13, leaders of the ruling Conservative administration faced tough questions on problems with collections, including the rollout of the new food waste recycling scheme.

Liberal Democrat group leader, Cllr Ryan Priest, challenged the authority’s cabinet member for finance, Cllr Steve Clark, after describing his own experience.

Cllr Priest said: “I’ve not had a regular collection on the day it was due since the scheme came into place.

“I’ve given up on using my food waste bin because of the maggots that made it home, I’m wondering how it’s all gone so wrong.”

Cllr Priest pointed out Cllr Clark runs a pub and added: “If I go into that pub and I pay for a beer, and you have run out, I get my money back. 

“If I order something from Amazon and it doesn’t turn up I get a refund; given the council’s failure to deliver one of its core services will you be offering a council tax refund?”

Cllr Clark said: “No, we won’t be offering a refund but what we are trying to do is make sure we have a good service.

“We have had hiccups, we are getting over those.

“In terms of council tax we have the third lowest council tax in England outside the London area so for value for money we do very well. We will make sure the service is better in the future.”

Reform UK also had questions on the council’s new collection service which was introduced in April 2026.

Dudley Reform leader, Cllr Marco Longhi, said: “Resident’s understand that introducing a new waste collection system is a major undertaking but they also expect some basic competence.

“What they cannot understand is why you chose to launch it before you had the vehicles, the staffing and the operational capacity needed to deliver it successfully.”

Dudley Council’s leader, Cllr Patrick Harley, said: “The rollout of the new waste scheme was time constrained, if we had delayed like some other authorities it would cost the authority millions in lost funding from central government.

“We make 300,000 bin collections every week across the borough, are we almost on top of it? Yes we are. Are there mitigating circumstances? Yes.

“The fire at Lister Road, the chemical spillage, even the warm weather, we can’t expect our refuse collectors to go out earlier in the day in this heat then work past 2pm. That is being a good employer.”

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Harley explained food waste collection targets are set by central government over two years.

If a council meets the targets it can receive an extra £8m in grants from Westminster as well as the standard financial support to cover collection costs.

Cllr Harley added councils that delayed the start of their collection service could miss out on some or all of the extra cash.

He also told the Local Democracy Reporting Service Dudley has introduced 12 new collection rounds across the borough and has taken on more collection staff.