FINAL preparations are being made to roll out a controversial cut in bin collections across the district, after a pilot scheme was declared a success.

A trial of the new fortnightly general waste collections is being run in the village of Wyke, where initial figures show recycling has jumped by more than 50 per cent, exceeding Bradford Council’s expectations.

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The results were even described as “excellent news” by the opposition Conservatives, who had opposed the move to fortnightly rounds.

Under the new system, green bins are emptied one week and grey bins the next.

People are able to put all their recyclables into one bin and are also able to recycle more items, such as drinks cartons.

Councillor Sarah Ferriby, who leads on waste collection at Labour-led Bradford Council, said she was delighted with the success of the pilot, describing it as good news for both the environment and the Council’s finances.

Cllr Ferriby, a ward councillor for Wyke, said: “Residents have really engaged with the new alternate weekly bin collections.

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“We have had really positive comments and I have actually had residents from other parts of the district say to me, ‘When are we starting?’”

She said they had seen no increase in fly-tipping and discovered no major hitches during the pilot so they would be replicating it when they started gradually introducing the changes from April.

Bradford Council had already decided to move to fortnightly general waste rounds. The trial in Wyke was designed to work out how best to introduce the change, as it was deemed to be an area with a representative mix of housing styles and recycling rates.

The pilot saw the amount of recycling collected increase by 52 per cent, and the amount of general waste cut by 27 per cent.

Local councillor David Warburton (Lab, Wyke), said the boost in recycling was “absolutely brilliant” and said he hadn’t received one complaint.

Cllr Warburton said Council staff had been working hard to make sure people understood the new system, using leaflet drops, door-to-door advice rounds and a telephone helpline.

He said the system had worked well, even in areas with high rates of litter and rubbish on the streets, “where we thought we would have had some problems”.

The opposition Conservatives had opposed the move to fortnightly bin collections when they were agreed in February last year.

Councillor Rebecca Poulsen (Con, Worth Valley), the Tories’ spokesman for waste, said they still had concerns that it represented a 50 per cent cut in an important service.

But she welcomed the recycling boost in the pilot area, saying: “The figures are very positive. Any increase in recycling is excellent news. When it rolls out across the rest of the district, I hope we would see similar increases overall.

“I think it will increase in some areas more than others and I think there will be problem areas and I think there will be fly-tipping in certain parts.”

Councillor Martin Love, leader of the Green group on Bradford Council, said he wasn’t surprised by the “step-change” in recycling rates that fortnightly general bin rounds had sparked in Wyke. He said: “It’s the reason we have so many local authorities who have gone towards alternate weekly collections. It’s disappointing it has taken Bradford so long to actually catch up with everybody else.”

Bradford is the last authority in West Yorkshire to switch from weekly to fortnightly general waste collections.

A handful of authorities in the UK have now switched to three-weekly, or even four-weekly, general waste rounds, as the cost of landfill tax has been on the rise.

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