Northampton borough council is to approve proposals for a framework for its new environmental services contract, following a public consultation on the future of its waste service. The council’s Cabinet will review the plan at a meeting on Wednesday (April 12). If approved, the specification will be sent to companies bidding to take on the new contract and could see the council move to a commingled dry recycling system, from its current separate collection service. The announcement comes after the council confirmed plans to seek a private contractor to run its environmental and waste services contract in December 2016 (see letsrecycle.com story). The current contract, held by Amey, comes to an end in June 2018. A new contractor is now being sought through a competitive procurement process. Nine companies have initially expressed an interest in bidding for the contract, the council has claimed, with five having been shortlisted to bid for the contract. The bidders will be asked to submit service proposals based on the priorities of the public, identified through the public consultation which ran in late 2016. These included the provision of a fortnightly commingled recycling collection, a separate food waste collection service and a free garden waste collection service. Separate collections Should the proposals be approved, this could see the end of the borough’s existing collection system, which sees dry recyclable material collected weekly via three boxes with paper and cartons collected in green boxes, plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays and metals collected via a blue box, and glass bottles and jars in a black box. The council said that this level of service is likely to add more to the cost of the new contract, and any new proposals must be affordable within the council’s budgetary. Tender documents will soon be released to the interested bidders and will be returned for evaluation during the summer. Cllr Jonathan Nunn, leader of Northampton borough council, said: “Nine thousand residents gave their views about this, and the enormous response to our public consultation exercise shows that these very important services really matter to people. “We want to ensure that the contractor selected through this procurement process can deliver to the high quality that people expect and in a way that we can afford.”

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