THOUSANDS more residents in Teesdale can now sign up for garden waste collections, county chiefs say.
Rotters, a not-for profit organisation, has confirmed it will no longer be collecting green waste. The organisation, which had about 2,500 customers, had accused the county council of not offering enough financial support – a claim denied by County Hall.
Durham County Council last week announced it will take over the collections and said it is able to collect green waste from 7,000 homes that were not getting the service. It means the majority of homes in the dale will now get their green waste collected, although it is understood some hard-to-reach properties may miss out. Collections begin in March.
A spokesperson said: “We currently operate a bin-based garden waste collection service across County Durham. Last year there were over 66,000 subscriptions for the service including people in parts of Teesdale.
“People in other Teesdale communities have until now had their garden waste collected by Rotters Community Composting.
“This has been with our support in continuation of arrangements dating back to the days of Teesdale District Council. As Rotters has now told us it will not be providing the service from this year, we have put in place plans to offer our garden bin collections to residents in Teesdale communities we have not previously served.”
John Shannon, Durham County Council strategic waste manager, said: “We are pleased now to be able to offer our garden waste collections to even more residents in Teesdale from March.
“People can sign up to the service from today. We would appreciate it if those who are interested could do so online as this helps us add them to our system quickly, although there are other ways to subscribe.
“Everyone who signs up will be provided with a bin at no extra charge but we would ask them to bear with us as there are potentially thousands to deliver.”
The cost to subscribe for 2023 is £38 for the garden waste season and that includes the initial cost of the first bin and delivery of it.
Anyone signing up before March 1 will receive all 17 fortnightly collections to November.
The council said garden waste collection days may be different to their rubbish and recycling collections. Collection date calendars and a sticker will be provided to each subscribing household.
Mr Shannon added: “We would like to place on record our thanks to Rotters for providing such a good and very popular service to people in Teesdale for almost 20 years.
“We were very sorry to hear those collections were ending but we are now looking ahead to offering our own service to anyone who would like it across Teesdale.”
![A COUNTY councillor is backing a campaign to get a pedestrian crossing in Staindrop. Frustrated parish councillors in the village summoned their county council representative Cllr George Richardson to their latest meeting to discuss several issues, including the call for a safe way to cross the A688. Earlier this year their request for a crossing was turned down by the county council’s highways officers. Parish council chairman Jonothan Raper described the reasons for the refusal as “spurious” and called on Cllr Richardson to support their campaign. He added: “One of the arguments they made was there is no clear line of desire when they studied the village – well this isn’t a clear line of desire because there isn’t a crossing, people cross whenever they can. “When the lollipop person was there, one of the things I noticed was people would walk all the way down to the lollipop person to cross the road to go to the shop or to go to the school.” He added a problem of parking at the primary school is exacerbated because people are too afraid to walk their children across the road. Cllr Richardson said he had supported previous attempts for a crossing point with the first being made about 15 years ago. He added: “We went fairly well down the road with that and they looked into it. The only recommended place was where the bus stop is and to get the visibility splays, people on the other side of the road would lose their parking. “That didn’t go down well so it just died a death.” Cllr Raper said he suspected the real reason for the officers’ refusal was the cost of installing a crossing. He added that much of the cost could be recovered from savings made on not having to employ a lollipop patrol. Cllr Raper said: “A lollipop person only provides a benefit of crossing for three hours of the day. You are getting 21 extra hours of crossing time [with a pedestrian crossing].” Cllr Richardson said he would raise the issue with the county council’s cabinet member for highways, Cllr John Shuttleworth.](https://teesdalemercury.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/georgeR-120x86.jpg)
