Stockport Council's deputy boss faced questions for the first time after 'Binlid-Gate' sent collections into chaos last month.

Towards the end of July, Stockport Council began enforcing a long-standing rule around not collecting any bins that had the lids open. The local authority said this was to ensure the safety of bin crews based on manufacturer guidance.

However council officers appeared to not tell anyone the change had taken place, even top councillors. As the public did not know about the enforcement, hundreds of bins were not collected prompting major backlash.

Those issues appear to have largely been resolved while the council has acknowledged it did fail to tell people in advance and apologised. Last week, the council's Liberal Democrat-administration announced major changes are coming with more collections to start later this year.

From the beginning of December 2026, blue bins for paper and cardboard recycling will be collected every two weeks instead of every four weeks across Stockport. Opposition parties have overwhelmingly welcomed the move but concerns remain.

The council moved to four weekly collections due to financial pressures on its budget for day-to-day services in 2025. Council leader Mark Roberts said: "It is critical people know the Liberal Democrats will listen to the feedback given and strive to make a positive difference wherever we can."

However the council's leadership faced questions over the cost of this new announcement after an urgent request was made by Labour councillor David Meller over the issue. A report briefing elected members ahead of a September 1 scrutiny meeting said more people paying for garden waste collections than expected had allowed the council to increase blue bin recycling.

In its budget for the current financial year, the council expected to generate £3.588m from garden waste collection permits. However the local authority is now expected to generate an additional £335,000 on top of that.

This will cover the £185,000 costs for the current financial year while the funding of the service beyond March 2027 is currently being worked out. However this would require garden waste collection charges to continue.

Garden waste collections is a service the council does not have to legally provide unlike other recycling and general waste. Like most councils across the country, the majority of Stockport's overall budget goes on adult and children's social care.

Cllr Meller said he was worried the charges were being used to prop up the increase in blue bin collections, adding: "It looks to me as if we are asking residents to pay twice for a service here." He felt people were paying for garden waste as well as their council tax.

In response, councillor Jilly Julian argued this was not the case as the charges did not cover the entire budget for garden waste collections. The unexpected increase in people paying for garden waste meant less subsidy was needed and therefore more money was available for the services Stockport Council has to provide.

Cllr Jess Meller also questioned the timing of the decision as it 'seems like a little bit of a coincidence' shortly after the controversies around bin lids, particularly when the council had previously said a three-weekly collection was unaffordable.

However Cllr Julian said the council had been working on the issue before 'Binlid-Gate' but the controversy was 'a heck of a way to get a lot of feedback from people in a very short space of time'. She said the decision being made now allowed for the new collections to start in December.

She said: "The ambition, I don't think any of us would want any other than the best improvements we can put into these services".

Cllr Julian added: "We have a world of information available to us that we didn't have available to use say six to 12 months ago. I am glad we have been able to put something in place now."

Bin services sit under housing and environment services which has a total budget of £11m. This contrasts with nearly £151m spent on adult social care services and the £85m spent on children's services by Stockport Council

The local authority is currently forecasting a budget black hole of £8.3m by March 2026 and is in 'a challenging financial position'. £7.2m of overspends coming from social care and the black hole 'reflects the continuing cost pressures faced by statutory demand-led services supporting the most vulnerable residents, inflationary costs and high interest rates'.

In July 2026, the Local Government Association warned councils across are facing a £7 billion funding black hole in their budgets. They said this was 'a gap so large it is more than the current council spend on roads, transport, homelessness and housing services combined'.