BOROUGH chiefs insist they are ready to take on the challenge of running waste services after the opposition leader criticised their track record.

Cheshire West and Chester Council’s cabinet has agreed to end the current waste services contract with Kier early and pursue setting up an arms-length company to take the responsibility on from April 2020.

The Labour administration is keen to set up the company with co-operative principles and the ambition to further improve recycling rates and reduce the borough’s carbon footprint.

But at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, Cllr Lynn Riley, leader of CWAC’s Conservative opposition, placed doubt on the council’s ability to deliver on the scheme.

“I have to put down some serious doubts about this administration’s commitment to the external companies that this council operates,” she told the cabinet.

“Over the last four years we have seen decline and deterioration in performance and opportunity in the council companies that were set up prior to 2015.

“I think running a waste service, when big organisations like Kier are looking to exit that, that should tell us that it is a very difficult and very different business to the ones that we are involved in and we absolutely must assemble the right team to guide us going forward.

“I think we need vision, we need flair, we need creativity. We obviously have to take this all-important decision, this is a large opportunity, but it is an opportunity that comes with risks.”

Responding to the Frodsham councillor, Cllr David Armstrong, cabinet member for legal and finance, praised the current administration’s track record of running arms-length companies.

He told cabinet that footfall had increased at Brio leisure centres since Labour took office in 2015, insisting they had become more ‘welcoming’ places.

The Winsford councillor suggested Edsential – which provides services to schools in Cheshire West and the Wirral – had gone from ‘strength to strength’.

And he told members that the managing director of Qwest, which provides energy and digital services, ‘couldn’t have been more positive with how things have gone’.

Cllr Armstrong said: “As the shareholder for the different companies that this council runs, clearly Cllr Riley is in a different universe to me because they have all improved their performance over the last four years.

“That is without exception, even the ones that have certain challenges. I’m almost lost for words.

“I think as an administration we have shown vision, we have kept to our principals, and all of these services have improved greatly over the last four years.”

Cllr Karen Shore, cabinet member for environment, told councillors that waste services are ‘right at the top of the table’ for the council – adding that CWAC is keen to ‘embrace innovation’ to help the environment and maintain a quality service for residents.

A report on the next steps for taking on waste services will be presented to cabinet in June, a month after the local elections.