AFTER much furore over plans to end weekly bin collections Dudley Council bosses have now announced they may rethink the idea.

The council unveiled plans last Wednesday to introduce fortnightly instead of weekly black bin collections and also plans to charge £30 a year for the green waste removal service in a bid to save £1million against a backdrop of decreased funding from central government.

But angry council taxpayers were up in arms over the plan and both UKIP and Conservative leaders on Dudley Council said they would fiercely oppose it.

However – council chiefs have confirmed an all-party working group is to be set up to leave “no stone unturned” to investigate other ways of making the required savings.

Councillor Hilary Bills, cabinet member for environmental services, said: “The proposals to change the way we collect people’s waste and recycling were not put forward lightly, this is one of a number of difficult decisions we are having to make.

“From the initial feedback I want to look at this issue specifically to see if there are any alternative ways of saving this money from the wider council budget.

“The best way of doing that is to have an open and transparent working group with members of all political parties to scrutinise the proposals.”

Councillor David Sparks, cabinet member for finance, said: “24 out of 26 metropolitan councils have moved to fortnightly collections, and some have gone to a collection every three weeks, but we have to exhaust every option before taking this decision.

“We will leave no stone unturned in looking for alternative ways of saving this money to meet the cuts we are having to make because of the reductions in funding from government.”

Councillor Paul Brothwood, UKIP’s group leader on Dudley Council, has hailed the rethink a victory for the purple party.

He told the News: “We told Cllr Pete Lowe (Dudley Council’s leader) we were totally against it and would block it in full council. It’s the most ridiculous idea; it would create more fly-tipping and we don’t want any more fly-tipping.

“Under no circumstances is it going to happen.

“We look forward to working with the cross party working group. All of us will sit down together and find resources from elsewhere.”