Councillor ejected from meeting after claiming his garden waste permits petition had been mishandled

Councillor Greg Lennon (Progressive Change North Lanarkshire, Gartcosh, Glenboig and Moodiesburn) had presented petition calling for reversal of decision to introduce charges for brown bin collections.

A Monklands councillor found himself ejected from a North Lanarkshire Council meeting after claiming his petition on garden waste permits had been mishandled.

In June, Councillor Greg Lennon (Progressive Change North Lanarkshire, Gartcosh, Glenboig and Moodiesburn) presented a petition calling for the reversal of a decision to introduce charges for brown bin collections which had more than 2600 signatures.

As a report on the council position was presented to members, Councillor Lennon claimed there had been a breach in petitions procedure, although environmental convener Helen Loughran (Labour, Thorniewood) said she was unable to hear him calling in to the meeting remotely.

Following several minutes of heated argument, a vote was held to remove Councillor Lennon from the meeting and this was passed with support from the Labour administration after the SNP group abstained, with their leader Tracy Carragher suggesting the reason Councillor Lennon could be heard online but not in the chamber was that he was not using a council device to join the meeting.

The £40 annual permit was introduced to reduce budgetary pressures on this collection service and at this time, North Lanarkshire was one of only four councils in Scotland to still offer free garden waste collection.

This means that the permits are generating an income of around £1.5 million which would have to be found from elsewhere if the permits were scrapped.

Since then some 59,000 residents have purchased permits, with council tenants having it added to their rent and homeowners paying a one off charge.

This represents a higher than expected level of uptake while complaints have been lower than predicted, with most of those received relating to the online application process and delivery of permits.

Unlike with food waste, there is no legal requirement for councils to provide garden waste collection services and residents who do not wish to pay for a permit still have the option to take garden waste to their local recycling centre.

The committee then formally acknowledged the investigations that had been carried out in response to the petition and agreed that the council was unable to support the proposal to reverse the decision.

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