Free weekly green bin collections are to be scrapped due to council cuts.

With Enfield Council facing having to make £56m in savings, they are currently consulting the public on proposals to either provide a free fortnightly green waste collection, or a weekly collection that will cost £60 a year.

There will be no option to keep the current weekly green collection, despite being included in the current council tax bill.

Councillor Joanne Laban, Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group said the proposed £60 charge was a “garden tax” on Enfield.

She said: "The proposals to go to either fortnightly collection or paid for weekly collection is not good for the residents of Enfield. People will simply opt out of the system altogether rather than pay the cost if we go to the charging method therefore reducing the amount we recycle. 

"The fortnightly collection offer is also bad news as people will have to keep their waste longer which will only create extra bags left by the kerbside which is not the point of the wheelie bin service.

"Residents pay council tax and they deserve to have a proper choice not a change forced upon them which is essentially what this is. A large number of the public have little or no confidence in consultations run by the council and either option will be rammed through regardless of people's views.”

After opening last week, people will have plenty of time to offer their opinion, as the consultation will remain open until September 2.

So far, opinion is split among people on whether removing the free weekly green bin collection is a good idea, and what option they would choose to replace it.

Sian Carlisle wrote on a community Facebook forum: “It's hard as I think food waste needs to be collected weekly, but not garden waste and we never have anywhere near a full bin of combined green waste.

“A separate food waste bin for weekly collection proposal makes sense but I would want to be able to use a full size bin still and not a smaller one that foxes could get in to. Hearing about what happens in other areas though we are very lucky to have all three bins collected weekly.”

Rupesh Tailor said: “In the summer the smell would be awful. I wouldn't be able to do any gardening. One weekend of cleaning half the garden and the bin is full.”

Carey Annesley wrote on the same forum thread:  “I dare say that if fortnightly collections came in, we'd all cope. It would be less pleasant in the summer, granted. It wouldn't be so bad if there were more than one dump in the borough, and also one that opened on a Monday after a weekend's gardening.

“The thing that bugs me the most, however, is that the council had a big drive to encourage residents to recycle. They provided the bins and we changed our habits accordingly.

“Now, they want to either provide us with yet another bin, or put on an additional cost to what we already pay? That's my sticking point.”

Enfield Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, Cllr Daniel Anderson, said many other councils now collect bins fortnightly, or charge for the service.

He said: "We are proposing to stop providing the current weekly green bin service in its present form. However, we would continue to provide a weekly black bin collection and blue bin recycling collection.

"I would emphasise that we will consider all the responses we receive to the consultation and weigh up all the options, before we make a decision on the future of the service.”

The consultation questionnaire can be found here.