A council has agreed to pay an extra £1.2million to extend its current waste collection service ahead of refuse workers going on strike.

Spanish-owned waste contractor Urbaser is willing to add another two years onto its current deal with Dartford council but wants more money to cover its operating losses of approximately £400,000 a year.

On June 8, the council’s cabinet voted to extend its current deal with Urbaser – valued at approximately £4 million – until June 30 2026.

The refuse firm, which also collects bins in Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge and Malling boroughs, has been receiving an extra £15,000 per month from Dartford council as financial support since the pandemic.

However during the extension period from June 30 2024 until the same date in 2026, the council will be paying them up to £50,000 a month for the service - an extra total spend of £1.2 million.

This would be instead of, not additional to, the current support payment of £15,000 per month.

But opposition councillors have blasted the move, accusing the local authority of letting the company “treat Dartford taxpayers as a cashpoint machine”.

Shadow leader of the council and leader of the Labour group Cllr Jonathon Hawkes told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “This is £1.2m being given over by the Conservative administration for nothing in return.

“It is essentially just an extra spend which we are not getting anything in return from, and that’s not in our view a responsible or an effective use of taxpayers money.”

Cllr Hawkes slated the model of outsourcing - where councils pay private companies like Urbaser to provide services.

He said: “What is happening here is Urbaser are doing some outsourcing themselves – they’re outsourcing their own costs back to the taxpayer, so not only are Dartford taxpayers paying to outsource a service, the company that is receiving that are now saying the ‘costs of doing business - we need you to pay those as well’, so it really is quite a bad deal for Dartford taxpayers.

“I absolutely do not think that Dartford taxpayers should be subsidising Urbaser to make a profit, which is what we think is happening here.”

Cllr Hawkes argues that in 2026 when the council goes to tender the contract again, they should look at running it in-house instead, like neighbouring councils in Gravesham and Sevenoaks do.

He added:: “We’re paying £4m a year and on top of that we’re paying these additional financial support payments, essentially paying the staff costs, but if we’re going to pay the staff costs we might as well employ them.

“And therefore we wouldn’t be at risk of someone coming back to us anytime they felt that the financial environment was getting a bit rocky for them and trying to treat Dartford taxpayers as a cashpoint machine.”

However, Cllr Jeremy Kite (Con), thinks the opposition’s criticism of the contract extension is incorrect.

The council chose to extend the contract rather than seek a new provider because “it would have been entirely irresponsible to go out for retendering,” given rising costs, Cllr Kite

He says there is no way that those costs could be avoided because they’re “real costs”.

“It’s going to HGV drivers’ wages, it’s going to fuel, it’s going to wagon and maintenance costs, it’s going to bags and gloves and clothing – that’s what it’s going to, it’s 100% going to service,” he added.

The Tory leader also pointed out that the £50,000 monthly cost is the upper limit the cabinet has set based on current costs, adding “I’m not trying to hide behind the suggestion that those figures will be half that or a quarter of that, it’s not going to be the case, they’re going to be probably close to that.”

Cllr Kite also said that the profit Urbaser makes from its contact with the council is set at a percentage by their contract, which will not change during the two year extension, and said that insourcing would make no difference to costs.

The cabinet report goes on to note Urbaser’s waste collection performance has been “excellent” with more than 99% of collections consistently made to schedule.

Its refuse workers are set to go on strike later this month after members of the GMB union working for Urbaser in Dartford rejected a pay offer of 8%, which Urbaser put forward after the union asked for an inflation-matched raise of 13.5% in February.

Mick Butler, GMB’s southern region organiser, confirmed that unless a better offer is put forward, strike action is planned for July 27 and 28, and again on August 3 and 4.

Strike mandates are valid for six months, so if there’s no improvement in the offer, there could be further action afterwards, Mr Butler warned.

He added that the union has no problem with Urbaser’s contract being extended, provided they make an improved offer to staff.