Rural residents of the Augusta Margaret River region have had their free tip passes restored to 26 free visits a year after councillors revoked a decision to cut passes to just 13 on Wednesday.
About 1500 rural ratepayers were recently informed by the Augusta Margaret River Shire that they would only receive 13 free tip passes this year despite paying the same $200 Waste Facility Maintenance Levy townspeople pay.
The levy is applied to every rateable property in the shire and covers the capital costs of waste disposal, transfer stations and landfill as well money for future reserves for when a new site is required.
Town residents have an additional fee of $213 for their weekly kerbside waste collection while rural residents do not pay this fee but have to deliver their rubbish to stations themselves.
Peter Wright lives near Witchcliffe and approximately eight kilometres away from a transfer station and was angered by the news tip pass allowances would be reduced.
“From my point of view there are already people dumping rubbish in national parks and reducing passes could lead to more of that,” he said.
“We pay a lot of rates in rural properties and we don’t seem to be getting the same service.
“This will lead to people digging holes and dumping or just burning off rubbish because it add costs to removing rubbish properly.”
Councillor Kim Hastie brought the matter to the July 22 council meeting as a matter of urgent new business and was supported by Neville Veitch and Felicity Haynes.
A motion was called to revoke the previous motion to reduce tip passes from 26 to 13 which passed at an earlier council meeting.
The new motion passed four votes to two.
“The number of free tip passes is too harsh,” Cr Hastie said.
“When council went through the process to reduce passes two years ago there was the perception of equality.
“Urbans had a weekly bin pick up service and rurals had 52 tip passes. That was reduced to 26 and now to 13. It is too harsh.
“By cutting that down to 13 we have effectively told rural ratepayers to stock pile their rubbish for a month and if you want to get rid of it earlier you have to pay.”
The hidden cost and inconvenience incurred by rural residents to transport rubbish were also considered and it was argued that this added a further burden to ratepayers.
Councillors Veitch and Haynes also viewed the decision as a win for the region but councillor Ian Earl, who argued against the motion, said the shire incurred considerable costs to operate rural waste collection and some of that needed to be worn by residents.
“Council is providing 13 free tip passes and if they need more they can buy them at a reduced rate of $3 [normally $7],” he said.
“We have to tell people it costs us a lot of money to run these transfer stations.
“If we continue to step back on the issue we will only push this problem onto future councils to make the hard decisions.”
Mr Wright was pleased the council had overturned the decision.
“It’s fantastic,” he said. “What else can I say?
“I never expected to happen so fast but it’s good that they have listened to residents
