Dudley Council's finance chief has ruled out any council tax refund for residents whose bins are not being collected on time, despite widespread disruption to waste services. At a council meeting on July 13, leaders of the ruling Conservative administration faced tough questions over collection problems, including the rollout of a new food waste recycling scheme.
Liberal Democrat Leader Challenges Finance Chief
Liberal Democrat group leader, Cllr Ryan Priest, directly challenged cabinet member for finance, Cllr Steve Clark, after describing his own poor experience with the service. Cllr Priest stated: "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 drew a comparison to private sector services, noting that Cllr Clark runs a pub. He argued: "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?"
Finance Chief Cites Low Council Tax
Cllr Clark responded firmly: "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." He added: "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 Questions Service Launch Timing
Reform UK also raised concerns about the new collection service, introduced in April 2026. Dudley Reform leader, Cllr Marco Longhi, said: "Residents 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."
Council leader, Cllr Patrick Harley, defended the timing, explaining that the rollout was time-constrained by central government requirements. He stated: "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."
Mitigating Circumstances Cited
Cllr Harley highlighted the scale of operations and mitigating factors: "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."
Financial Incentives Behind Launch
Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Harley explained that food waste collection targets are set by central government over two years. If a council meets the targets, it can receive an extra £8 million in grants from Westminster, in addition to standard financial support to cover collection costs. He added that councils which delayed the start of their collection service could miss out on some or all of that extra cash.
Cllr Harley also told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that Dudley has introduced 12 new collection rounds across the borough and has taken on more collection staff to address the issues.
