Plans to overhaul environmental services such as bin collections and street cleaning will not go back to the drawing board.
Middlesbrough councillors submitted a Call-in to the council over a decision made by the Executive to form a Joint Venture Company (JVC) with Norse, owned by Norfolk County Council. This meant the overview and scrutiny board must reconsider whether it should it be sent back to Executive.
Cllr Len Junier submitted the Call-in - backed by six other councillors - saying the plan was being rushed through. Other reasons for the Call-in were that such a massive move from in-house services and proposals were “wrong in principle”. He called for a “Norse Tees” but council officer Tom Punton said that a joint authority approach locally had been “informally” discussed but was not an option.
Cllr Nicky Walker, chair of the overview and scrutiny board which met today, stressed the move was not privatisation and a detailed business plan would be presented at a later date.
Cllr Mick Thompson proposed to refer it back to Executive but nine voted against. The proposals for environment, property and commercial services is part of the council’s Change Programme to tackle budget cuts of more than £5m over the next three financial years.
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