MEMBERS and staff involved in West Devon?s waste collection services are celebrating a big pre-Christmas boost, following the announcement of top accolades this week. The borough?s waste collection service is ?good? and prospects for further improvements are ?excellent?, a Government watchdog report has revealed. The Audit Commission recently inspected the Council?s service and gave high praise to West Devon. The service, which covers more than 22,000 households spread throughout West Devon?s large area, says the service is good and looking to the immediate future says the prospects for still further improvement are excellent. Cllr Paul Ridgers, chairman of the council?s environment and health committee, said: ?Waste collection is our most conspicuous service and inevitably costs more than anything else we do. ?We need to get this right and the report says we have. It warmly praises us for service operation and for our recycling operation and plan. ?The inspectors described us at the very top of the good categorisation and with our prospect of improvement being excellent we couldn?t have done a lot better. We are delighted. The auditors make some recommendations for further investigation and we will look at these.? West Devon has a weekly refuse and recycling service, and the free fortnightly Green and Clean garden waste scheme for Tavistock, Okehampton, Yelverton and Dousland. West Devon residents currently recycle over 26% of their normal domestic waste and it is hoped that will increase to 36% next year. Cllr Ridgers added: ?Government has set us ambitious recycling targets and we are looking to achieve them. People in West Devon have a strong instinct towards recycling and part of our good categorisation is down to everybody who involves themselves in our schemes. ?Not too many authorities get the sort of categorisation we have achieved. The words good and excellent don?t come out of Audit Reviews very often. We are prepared to work with everybody to take our service forward. ?We should congratulate FOCSA, our staff and partners on getting recognition for one of the best services in the country. It is a real feather in our cap.?
