WEST Devon residents will not have to pay to have their garden waste collected after councillors voted against the decision at a meeting on Tuesday.

Borough councillors voted nine in favour and 18 against the recommendation to charge for an opt-in collection service. The new service would support the council financially and be in place of the current service, which is funded through council tax and is not statutory.

Presenting the recommendation, Cllr Robert Sampson, the council’s lead member for commercial services, said a huge amount of work had been undertaken by officers and the working group to get to the recommendation.

He said: ’None of us wanted to introduce a charge for the garden waste service, but we do all recognise that the council is facing a difficult future where non statutory services may have to be paid for. We have investigated this in considerable detail so that councillors have been able to make a decision in light of the fullest information.’

Before the vote, Cllr Philip Sanders, leader of the council, said: ’It is with huge reluctance that I have made my decision. I am opposed to the concept of charging but unfortunately, as the leader of the council, I have to have regard for the long term future of this council financially. I have stood here many times saying we need to increase our revenue and for that reason I will be supporting it.’

Cllr the Rev Mike Davies said: ’I respect the fact that we have to save costs but I don’t think this is the area to do it. We have to look after the community we live in. This is a tourist area — we don’t want more litter all over the place and this could increase fly-tipping. This is a service we should provide for free.’

Cllr Kevin Ball said he was aware of the need for the council to save money but the comments around the costs were not definitive enough and he wouldn’t be supporting the move.

Concerns were also raised for the pressure it would put on the recycling centres in the borough, which already suffer from long queues and how sustainable the new scheme would be if the same team, same vehicle and same routes were being used but with only opted-in pick ups.

However, some councillors agreed with the recommendation.

Cllr Terry Pearce said: ’We’ve been placed in this position through no fault of our own. We have had a considerable fall in grant funding from Central Government and we have to look at the bigger picture. The new scheme works out to be 36p per fortnight per bag if you use four bags — it would cost you more in fuel to take those four bags to the recycling centre. We just haven’t got the money. If we don’t vote for it now and later it is awarded to an outside contractor and they decide to charge, the money will go to them and not the council.’

The councillors were asked to make their decision and they decided not to introduce a charge for this service.

The garden waste collection service will form part of the package that West Devon Borough Council intends to go out to tender with later this year, when it looks to renew its waste collection contract for the whole borough. The service will continue to be funded through residents’ council tax payments.