Elderly had to pay twice for rubbish (From Echo)

Elderly had to pay twice for rubbish

8:10am Wednesday 15th February 2012 in News By JACQUELINE McMILLAN

COUNCIL bosses were charging people in sheltered housing twice to collect their rubbish after classing it as industrial waste.

Elderly residents at Aragon Court, in Church Road, Hadleigh, paid their council tax, but were also ordered to pay for rubbish collections by Castle Point Council.

The extra charge has since stopped, but residents are still fuming because the council has agreed to only a 75 per cent refund for the service they were wrongly charged for.

One resident, who asked not to be named, said: “This is all very controversial and has gone on for so long. We should never have been paying this fee to have our rubbish collected. There is quite a bit of animosity about it.”

The retirement complex, which is managed by Peverel Retirement, uses communal bins as the method of rubbish collection, which is similar to the way trade waste is disposed of.

As a result, the council charged Peverel Retirement £438 for the use of trade waste collection vehicles to pick up the bins in 2011, which residents from the 53 flats had to foot the bill for.

The council has since scrapped the extra charge, but there are concerns over how long the charges were being paid and why it was kept quiet for so long.

Norman Ladzrie, Conservative councillor for St James’ ward, said the issues would be raised at an overview and scrutiny meeting at the council offices in Kiln Road, Thundersley, at 7.30pm tonight.

He added: “It is good news residents are no longer being charged twice for their refuse. It seems our neighbouring boroughs do not charge and we are falling in line with them, but there are further questions which need to be asked and these will be brought up in overview and scrutiny.

“I am concerned councillors were not told about this until seven months after the decision had been made to stop the charge.”

A spokesman for Peverel said: “We are aware a payment is due to our customers from the local council. We are actively lobbying the council to provide this at the earlier possible opportunity.”

A spokesman for Castle Point Council says the charge was stopped following a review of its waste collection service.

The spokesman added: “It became clear we should not have been categorising some collections as trade waste.

“As a consequence of the review, there was no longer a charge for collection from these premises from July 1.”