Council set to purchase new waste vehicles

Lewis Smith, local democracy reporter

A local authority is set to spend over a million pounds updating its fleet of waste vehicles.

Bridgend County Borough Council will spend around £1.1 million on purchasing five new vehicles and will refurbish three of the existing fleet over the coming months.

It is part of a replacement programme that a report says is designed to “ensure the council’s waste and recycling fleet is more-efficient, robust, and fit for purpose.”

It is expected to be the first of a multi-year rolling replacement programme for the waste service that is currently run by third party providers Plan B Management Solutions Ltd, who took over from Kier group in April of 2024, on a two year interim basis.

Officers at a recent cabinet meeting explained to members how additional funding of around £146,000 would be required alongside an existing budget set aside for the purchase, after delays in placing the order had led to increased costs.

The move comes after the Bridgend service was ranked as the lowest costing provider of waste services in Wales, in a report which was recently published by the Welsh Local Government Association.

Missed collections

However, the service hasn’t been without it’s share of issues in recent months, with discussions in a full council meeting highlighting a number of missed collections and operational problems that had taken place at community recycling centres across the borough.

Members later voted to approve the purchase of the new council-owned vehicles, which were subject to the later approval of the authority’s capital spending plans for 2024-25, which total £82 million.

This approval did, however, come with an amendment, which meant that around £20,000 of the cost set aside for marking the vehicles with council signage would be lowered to the legal minimum requirement in order to save money.

Speaking after the decision by members in July, Councillor Paul Davies, cabinet member for communities, said: “As our older vehicles approach end of life and eventually become uneconomical to repair, the newer vehicles will ensure that our fleet is always operating at optimum efficiency levels.”