THE roll-out of the Recycle for Dorset waste and recycling collection system in West Dorset has been delayed until October.

A decision was made by members of the Dorset Waste Partnership (DWP) joint committee board to postpone the roll-out after delays in construction at the flagship Broomhills waste transfer centre.

Recycle for Dorset was created by DWP, the umbrella organisation responsible for waste and recycling collection in Dorset, and has been introduced across the county.

The scheme will see an overhaul of the way rubbish and recycling is collected, and it was originally meant to be introduced in July.

Bill Davidson, head of strategy and commissioning at DWP, told a meeting of the joint committee that although the scheme could still be introduced despite the construction delays at Broomhills, it would be better if it was delayed.

Mr Davidson said: “If we were to continue there would a cost of around £128,000 but if we delay the date there would be a cost of £55,000 to £60,000. We can delay the delivery of the new bins, and October is a better time to go live than the middle of July.”

Members of the committee then agreed to delay the roll-out of the scheme.

The joint committee also agreed a major overhaul of how the DWP is runboth financially and operationally after the partnership overspent by £2.8million and received thousands of complaints following the roll-out of Recycle for Dorset in Weymouth and Portland. Its director Steve Burdis was suspended earlier this year.

The partnership’s management and control of vehicle hire was also criticised, and members of the DWP joint committee were told by monitoring officer Jonathan Mair that 28 DWP vehicles were operated without notifying the national government body about their insurance details, and that two companies had been awarded work worth £1.5million without a proper tendering process.

A total of 37 changes to the way the service’s financial controls and management, a revamp of the training programmes on offer to staff and changes to the partnership’s governance model were all agreed.

Cllr Anthony Alford, chairman of the joint committee, said: “Over a short space of time we have transformed the service and an immense amount has been done but we have learnt lessons in the control systems, in making sure we have proper budgets and ensuring everything is properly controlled so we can focus on delivering the Recycle for Dorset service well.

“There’s now a lot of work to be done and to be done very quickly. We are determined we should move forward and to do it quickly.”