THE COUNCIL has raked in more than double what the authority claimed it needed to cover by charging for green waste collection, damning figures have revealed.

In 2016, Reading Borough Council's (RBC) Labour leadership demanded residents fork out £50 to cover a £300,000 cost for picking up green waste.

Liz Terry, the lead councillor for neighbourhoods at the time, refused to apologise for scrapping the free collection service.

However, an investigation has revealed the council brought in a mega £704,000, £404,000 more than it said it needed to raise.

RBC pulled in £495,760 before the first bin collection, nearly £200,000 more than councillors said they needed to cover.

The authority also stated it spent £550,000 to run the waste collection scheme, not £300,000 originally planned, and that excess revenue has been used to fund other waste collection schemes.

But now, Council chiefs have agreed to increase the bin price again, from £50 to £60, as well as charging an extra £5 per green bag.

But Jason Collie, of Caversham, said council chiefs should scrap the price hike.

"Reading Borough Council clearly now just sees the 16,000-odd families with green bins as cash cows to prop up its finances," fumed Mr Collie.

"Cllr Terry claimed there would not be a large surplus and she infamously refused to apologise when she brought this in because it was ‘covering costs’.

"With the council having pocketed more than double it misled people it was looking for, perhaps Cllr Terry should reflect and now apologise.

"She may no longer be the lead councillor, but if she and the rest of the council want to prove they accidentally got their figures wrong and have integrity, they can ditch the proposed 20 per cent increase and instead drop the charge to £25 a bin, which would cover their £300,000 cost and leave them with £50,000 surplus."

In the 2017/2018 financial year, RBC's green waste scheme raised £692,550.90 through bins and £11,831.94 through bags.

A total of 1,223 new green bins were purchased across the year, raising £41,109.45.

Speaking at a policy meeting on September 26, 2016, Cllr Terry said: "I am not going to apologise that I have had to bring this report [which recommends imposing the charges] through. I will not apologise, it's necessary."

At the time, the Liberal Democrats had proposed a £25 charge for bin per household, which would have raised more than enough money, totalling £352,000.

Ricky Duveen, former Lib-dem leader, said: "The words cash cow springs to mind.

"They are certainly taking their citizens for granted.

"Those figures are a bit of a shock.

"They never did like logic.

"I don't know how they can justify those figures."

And despite raking in far more than councillors said they needed to raise, council chiefs have already agreed to hike the fees up by another 20 per cent from April 2019.

Assuming the number of collections stay the same, that means the authority can pull in £860,000 a year.

Mr Collie added: "The fact that they are now being honest and admitting they have been subsidising other areas of operation just goes to prove that the council is admitting it sees these thousands of families as cash cows to continue milking."

A spokesman for Reading Borough Council said number crunchers investigated other local authorities to estimate how much revenue the scheme would pull in.

They said the council expected more residents to drop out of the service, after only six per cent of existing users chose not to pay for green waste collection.

The spokesman said: "With Government funding failing to keep pace with the rising cost of providing council services, a fee was introduced for the first time last year.

"Garden waste collection is a discretionary service. When full collection and disposal costs are taken into account, it costs the Council £550,000 a year provide the service and any surplus revenue offsets costs for the operation of the domestic waste service in Reading.

“The Council reviews all fees and charges on an annual basis, including benchmarking of fees with other local authorities. The Reading garden waste collection charge will rise to £60 from April 2019.”

Cllr Terry was also contacted for a comment.