Issue - meetings

Report of the Chief Officer for Highways, Infrastructure Development and Waste (HIW/21/1) outlining proposals for a Van Permit Scheme at Household Waste Recycling Centres, attached.

An Impact Assessment is also attached for the attention of Members at this meeting and can be found on the impact assessment website.

(Councillors Biederman, Dewhirst and Hannaford attended remotely in accordance with Standing Order 25(2) and the Local Authorities and Police and Crime Panels (Coronavirus) (Flexibility of Local Authority and Police and Crime Panel Meetings) (England and Wales) Regulations 2020 and spoke to this item).

The Cabinet considered the Report of the Chief Officer for Highways, Infrastructure Development and Waste (HIW/21/1) outlining proposals for a Van Permit Scheme at Household Waste Recycling Centres, the Report being  circulated prior to the meeting in accordance with regulation 7(4) of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012.

The Council’s Household Waste Recycling Centre Improvement Strategy had been approved by Cabinet on 11th November 2020 (Report HIW/20/38) and an aspect of that Strategy was the implementation of a Household Waste Recycling Centre Van Permit system to help reduce the potential of trade waste abuse at sites.

The Report provided the details of the scheme and outlined that whilst users of vans could access HWRCs to dispose/recycle their waste (subject to certain vehicle and vehicle size restrictions), there had been concern that abuse of the system by commercial firms and businesses to dispose of their waste at public expense remained an issue.

The proposal was that van permits would be only be issued to vans registered to individual residents and not to vehicles registered to companies and / or businesses. The system required Devon residents who had a privately registered [registered to an individual] panel van (both large and small van size) to register with the Council if they wished to use that van at a HWRC.

Once registered, 12 permits for a rolling calendar year would be issued. The system would be based on ‘QR’ codes or similar with permits being scanned on access to each HWRC. There would be no charge for issuing the permits.

The Cabinet noted that it was only privately registered panel vans that needed to register, not cars, cycles/motorcycles, pickups, fully fitted campervans and a number of other vehicles, as outlined in the Report. 

Vans registered to businesses/companies/organisations were not eligible for a permit and would be excluded from accessing the HWRCs as well as those vehicles registered to addresses outside of the Council’s administrative area.

The Van Permit system would be piloted at a site prior to roll out so that any minor changes could be made if necessary.

The Scheme sought to limit the amount of commercial waste delivered to HWRC facilities by commercial firms, businesses and traders. The sites were provided free of charge for household waste deposited by residents and commercial waste should be deposited at commercial waste sites with the appropriate charges paid. 

An Impact Assessment was attached for the attention of Members at the meeting and could be found on the impact assessment website and as the policy applied to all Devon residents, no unmanageable consequences had been envisaged. The Scheme further supported the Environment Agency’s ‘right waste, right place’ campaign which sought to ensure that waste types were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 614