COUNCILLORS have questioned why a change to bin collections which could end up costing Bath businesses thousands of pounds a year did not come before them to be scrutinised before a decision was made.

In July, council cabinet member Mark Elliott signed off three changes to the rules around the city centre evening business waste collection — including moving the time that shops are allowed to start putting their bins out from 5pm to 6pm. But the small change could have a major unintended consequence as some shops and businesses close at 5pm and have nobody around at 6pm.

According to the council’s own analysis, these businesses could now have to spend £3,089 a year in additional wages for someone to stick around until then to put the bins out. Shaun Hughes (Midsomer Norton North, Independent Group) said: “There are always unintended consequences from council decisions and scrutiny allows us to remove as many as possible. This I don’t feel has had the right level of scrutiny.”

He was speaking at a meeting of a council scrutiny panel on July 29 which had been convened specially to scrutinise the plans after nine Independent Group, Green, and Conservative councillors called-in the decision. It was the first time the decision had come before a scrutiny panel.

Both call-in lead Colin Blackburn (Westmoreland, Independent Group) and panel member Joanna Wright (Lambridge, Green) questioned why the proposals had gone through the scrutiny process before the decision was made. Ms Wright said: “If it had come to scrutiny, some of this could have been ironed out better beforehand.”

Mr Elliott said he had only been responsible for the portfolio covering this area of council policy since May. He said: “Literally, this was one of the first decisions I was asked to make after becoming portfolio holder so I will need to go back and look at what the process was.”

He said: “I am a supporter of things coming to scrutiny; I think it’s a good thing to do. So I am very happy to commit to you, as the portfolio holder now, that I will attempt to bring things to scrutiny if they look like scrutiny is required or will be helpful.”

Mr Elliott said the change in policy would prevent rubbish being out on the streets during the busy early evening period, which people had complained about. He said the £3,089 figure was a “worst case scenario” but one shop warned the real figure could be even higher.

Councillors on the committee voted five to two to dismiss the call in. Mr Hughes and Ms Wright voted for Mr Elliott to reconsider the timings. But five of the six Liberal Democrats on the committee voted to dismiss the call-in, although John Leach (Walcot, Liberal Democrat) abstained.

The change will be brought in as a pilot and run for 12 months; 93 per cent of businesses who responded to the consultation had been against the proposal — but only 87 out of 1,126 business rate payers in the city centre had responded to the consultation.