PLANS are being made to relocate and temporarily store around 5,000 bins which were accidentally ordered by the district council, with efforts to sell them off failing.

Despite national advertising no extra sales of the excess bins have been made resulting in a storage headache for East Hampshire District Council and its ruling Conservative councillors.

The councilÕs overview and scrutiny committee received an update on the measures to tackle the problems which have dogged the implementation of the alternate weekly refuse collections.

Problems had included the over-ordering of bins, inaccurate record keeping, no stock taking and disputes with contractors.

The committee heard that while some actions identified in a previous damning report into the fiasco had been done others were causing problems, most notably the sale of the bins.

At the meeting last Wednesday, head of contract services Chris Youngs told members that national advertisements to sell the bins at cost price were unsuccessful along with measures to sell them to neighbouring councils.

He said that the next course of action was to advertise the bins for tender in a specialist magazine in the hope of attracting interest. However, he added that the council should prepare itself for the fact that they are likely to be sold off at a loss.

The committee was also told that the bins, currently being stored at the site of the future materials recycling facility in Holybourne, will have to be relocated as building work on the facility begins.

The news failed to impress the committeeÕs Liberal Democrat councillors who said that they were ÒastonishedÓ at the news.

ÒAt our last meeting we were promised that action would be taken to sell these extra bins ordered in error,Ó Lib Dem leader Tony Ludlow said.

ÒYet now we shall have to move them to other storage which will cost even more of tax payersÕ money and may need planning permission.Ó

Mr Youngs told the committee that he was hopeful of storing the bins for free at either the councilÕs tennis courts at Penns Place in Petersfield, empty units at the Woolmer Industrial Estate in Bordon or in an unused barn.

ÒThe aim is to store them for nothingÓ he told councillors, although he conceded that the cost of relocating the large number of bins will be around £2,000.

Questions were raised at the committee meeting about the success of the councilÕs garden waste collection with only half as many as was hoped taking advantage of the service costing £12 a year.

It was hoped that around 30 per cent of the district would use the collection but the committee heard that the take-up was in fact around 15 per cent.

Lib Dem councillors, who have never favoured the £12 charge, questioned whether it was costing more in administration to collect the fee than it would cost if the service were free.

But Mr Youngs pointed out that the fee gave the council a database of addresses from where the waste could be collected.

He also added that officers could only follow the decision to charge £12 which was made by full council in a majority vote in December 2001.

Cabinet member Patrick Burridge, the councillor who oversaw the implementation of the new refuse collection, came in for a grilling at the committee meeting.

In the past he had been criticised for not attending the past overview and scrutiny meetings which were discussing the waste problems and was invited to attend last weekÕs committee.

At the meeting Mr Burridge admitted that that there had been problems but said that positive steps were being taken to draw to an end the fiasco.

Mr Burridge also brought good news to the committee table informing councillors that residents are now recycling more of their waste than ever before.

He said that local people recycled a record-breaking 30.6 per cent of their waste during March with the Òexceptional figureÓ far surpassing the governmentÕs target for East Hampshire of 24 per cent by year 2005.

He told the committee that this puts East Hampshire residents in the top ten highest recyclers in the country.

After the meeting he added: ÒThis is really good news. If we can maintain and increase this high rate, we are on course to recycle around 40 per cent of our waste by year 2006.

ÒThe figures show that the introduction of alternate weekly collections has been really worthwhile, and prove that we can all work together to reduce the amount of waste going to landfillÓ.