Waste management company Veolia UK has secured its future in south west London after signing a long-term deal with a borough council.
Veolia UK and the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (H&F) have agreed for the former to become the latter’s primary service for waste and recycling management from January 2023 to October 2032.
This decision was part of the H&F council’s climate and ecological emergency initiative, aimed at dropping carbon emissions in the borough to ‘Net Zero by 2030’.
The Senior Executive Vice-President of Veolia’s Northern Europe Zone, Gavin Graveson, said: “The contract will significantly boost recycling rates across the borough, conserving resources in line with our purpose of Ecological Transformation.
“We are committed to launching social value initiatives within the community, such as introducing the Sustainability Fund to support local biodiversity and recycling projects, provide recruitment opportunities for long term unemployed residents and increase the number of apprentices.”
Veolia and the South London Waste Partnership
This is not the first partnership that Veolia has agreed to in this region of London.
The company signed as the waste management service provider of the four councils of the South London Waste Partnership from 2017 to 2025.
The councils were Merton, Kingston, Croydon and Sutton.
All councils were unhappy about Veolia’s service as challenges rose over time, with Merton and Croydon both sending the company Service Improvement Notices back in February 2022.
They all elected to not renew their current deal with Veolia upon its expiration in 2025, after taking into account the considerations of their officers.
Merton out, Kingston in
The council of Merton confirmed after their committee meeting in October that they would not be renewing their contract with Veolia UK and look at bringing street-cleaning back in house.
On the other hand, Kingston Council agreed to recommission the Veolia service under different terms to suit their current needs in November.
A spokesperson of Kingston Council said: “The decision was taken based on our ongoing commitment to provide the best value for Kingston’s residents as well as providing sustainable solutions for waste to support efforts to protect the environment.
“We recently undertook a survey to engage with local residents for their feedback on the current waste collections service they receive.
“The feedback received was positive and will to help inform the final requirements for the new contract from 2025.”
They explained that the deal with Veolia led to a rise in their recycling rates and substantial cost savings, keeping in account the different needs of its borough residents from 2017 to now.
The councils of Sutton and Croydon have yet to reveal what their future plans are as of now, with their committees still looking at recommendations to discuss at future meetings.
Featured Image credit: Lewis Clarke under the license CC BY-SA 2.0
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Kingston were already with Veolia before the SLWP commissioned the service. Sutton also issued a SIN Service Improvement Notice shortly after Merton & Croydon for their terrible service. Sutton had higher recycling rates before Veolia than now – it’s not helped with the fact that the SLWP sends segregated recycling to the incinerator to be set alight.
Earlier this week at the Merton Scrutiny meeting Directors explained that all the council’s felt the SLWP was not helpful in providing a waste service and Merton was very happy to be ending their relationship so standards were not dropped and would mean an “always on” service rather than Merton staff supporting other boroughs.