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# Cabinet member defends reduced number of brown bin collections in Lichfield and Burntwood
- URL: https://lichfieldlive.co.uk/cabinet-member-defends-reduced-number-of-brown-bin-collections-in-lichfield-and-burntwood/
- Published: 2020-02-27T17:24:00.000Z
- Updated: 2020-02-27T17:24:20.000Z
- Description: A councillor has defended a reduction in the number of brown bin collections across Lichfield and Burntwood.
- Author: Lichfield Live
- Tags: Burntwood, Politics, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-22 18:18, News

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## Homes paying for garden waste service see fall in number of pick-ups

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A councillor has defended a reduction in the number of brown bin collections across Lichfield and Burntwood.

Lichfield District Council charges residents an annual fee of £36 for the collection of garden waste.

But last year saw the number of times brown bins were picked up reduced to 23 from 26.

Cllr Steve Norman, leader of the Labour opposition group, accused the Conservative-controlled council of short changing residents.

![Steve Norman](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e3/90/e390c3da-0866-4d2a-8ffe-ca4999d7ce1c/content/images/lichfieldlive-co-uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/norman-steve.jpg)

Steve Norman

> “Even though Staffordshire Moorlands does not charge for green waste, it only cancelled two collections during the Christmas Period whereas Lichfield District Council cancelled one collection in 2017/18, two in 2018/19 and three in 2019/20.  
>  
> “There was no collection – not even for Christmas tree recycling between 13th December and 7th February this time around.  
>  
> “At this rate there will not be a collection until March in two years’ time.”  
>  
> Cllr Steve Norman, Lichfield District Council

#### “Conscious of the environmental impact”

But Cllr Liz Little, cabinet member responsible for recycling, said the local authority needed to make best use of resources.

> “We reduced the amount of garden waste collections this year as we found that fewer than 10% of people who signed up to have their brown bins emptied used the service in January over the last two years.  
>  
> “To run the service for such a small number of households is not a good use of our resources, and we are also conscious of the environmental impact because our crews have to drive across a large area to check all 40,000 properties that have signed up for the service.  
>  
> “We promoted the change to the number of collections online and over the phone when people registered for their 2020 garden waste service.  
>  
> “Every property across the district also received a bin calendar in November or December which outlines when all their bins will be emptied, including brown bins.  
>  
> “However, we know that some of our residents did not realise the garden waste service would not be running in January and so we will look at our promotional campaigns for our 2021 garden waste subscriptions to make sure this is more prominent in the future.”  
>  
> Cllr Liz Little, Lichfield District Council