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Agenda item

Waste Fleet Purchase Delegation

Purpose:

To consider the proposal outlined in the report to procure new waste fleet vehicles and the associated infrastructure for any electric vehicles.

 

Recommendations:

That the Committee resolves to:

1.    Note the decision by the Executive on 9 October 2024 to: Delegate authority to the Assistant Director for Commercial Development, in consultation with the Executive Members for Environment and Finance, and the Director of Finance, to purchase or lease up to 2 x full size HGV’s and up to 4 food waste vehicles and necessary charging infrastructure up to an estimated cost of £2.8M, (including a procurement contingency and estimated cost of borrowing).

2.    Agree any recommendations it wishes to submit to the Executive on 11 December 2024.

 

Invited:

Councillor Lidia Arciszewska – Executive Member for Environment

Bill Oddy – Assistant Director, Commercial Development

Simon Anthony – Business Manager, Environmental Services

 

 

 

 

Minutes:

Simon Anthony, Business Manager for Environmental Services, presented the report that was to consider the proposal outlined in the report to procure new waste fleet vehicles and the associated infrastructure for any electric vehicles.

The waste service had thirty-five frontline collection vehicles with most of these approaching the end of their life. The paper asked the Executive to consider the purchase of four vehicles and to delegate the purchase or lease of a further six vehicles. This would make the procurement of the vehicles smoother and would allow for better management of the Council’s Capital Programme.

Without reliable replacements, the vehicles, and therefore the service, would become unstable and could result in service disruption and additional costs relating to repairs and maintenance. Waste was the only Council provided service that most residents use each week so having an unreliable vehicle fleet would have a significant impact on residents and could lead to reputational damage.

A Member/Officer Steering Group met on 17 July and determined that the following vehicles were due for renewal:

·         4 x Food Waste Vehicles 7.5te and retain one of the existing fleet as a spare;

·         1 x 7.5te vehicle with bin lift for ultra narrow access collections;

·         2 x 26te vehicles used across both refuse and garden waste collections;

·         3 x supervisor vans.

The depots would also require substantial upgrades to accommodate the capacity for the EVs and the costs of those were outlined to Members.

The following points and suggestions were noted by the Committee:

·         As the report had already gone through to Executive, the report was presented to enable full transparency of the delegation of the decision.

·         The depot had a fully green tariff and solar panels or renewable energies would be an ideal situation; however, there was limited and restrictive grant funding. The Council would need to decide how far it could go with EV usage in future.

·         The procurement would begin in the new year and depending on the vehicle, it would be a six-nine month lead time to receiving the vehicle. All vehicles would be owned by the Council and leased to Ubico, which was standard practice. Hydrogen was not currently being considered as an alternative; however, it could be considered in future if available.

·         Supervisors checked missed bins, processed container returns and managed the crews which made them an essential part of the service.

·         Members welcomed the phased purchases proposed in the report and commented that it made sense for these decisions to be delegated.

·         It was felt that availability of the narrow vehicle was critical and most of the missed bins currently were due to lack of these; Officers confirmed that this was the key focus of the current dashboard.

·         Savings were forecast from the tariff information and best available information suggested they were currently marginal.

·         New regulations from central government were still be worked out and the vehicles in the report would be needed in all scenarios and a report would come back to Members on Waste Strategy at a later date.

·         There was a plan to install six EV charge points by Christmas and further works would include the substation and a programme of works, dependent on the purchase of the two HGVs.

 

RESOLVED that the Committee noted the report and it was agreed that there were no recommendations to the Executive on 11 December 2024.

 

 

Supporting documents:

 

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