Allerdale Waste Services Limited (AWSL) will now provide household waste and recycling collections and trade waste services in the borough. AWSL is a company wholly-owned by Allerdale Borough Council and takes over the running of the services from FCC Environment, whose contract ended last week.

The Council’s Executive decided in September to bring the service in-house, through a wholly-owned Local Authority Trading Company (LATCO), and since then a great deal of work has taken place to launch the new service.

Taking the service back in-house under the control of a local authority company, has a number of benefits for the Council. This includes it having greater control over how the service is run and the flexibility to adapt to proposed government changes to waste collection services in the coming years.

Residents will see no changes to their collections due to the change in provider, however, they should be mindful that during the coronavirus outbreak there may be temporary changes to services in order to keep workers safe and protect certain collections, such as household refuse. Garden waste collections were suspended on March 20 due to this reason.

Mike Johnson, Deputy Leader of Allerdale, said:

“I would like to commend our officers for all their hard work in getting Allerdale Waste Services up and running. This has been a huge project and our hard work will continue in the coming months to make sure that we deliver the service our residents expect.”

Tony Markley, Executive member for environmental services, said:

“The decision to bring our waste service in-house through the council-owned company was designed to make sure our residents received the best service possible. We’re determined this venture will be a success but please bear with us over the coming weeks and months as we operate the service through some uncertain times due to the coronavirus response.”