Garden waste would go fortnightly in wheeled bins at £69 a bin from April 2027, under plans for Cabinet on 22 October. Six-sack households would pay £138.
Hillingdon’s garden waste sacks would be replaced by wheeled bins from April 2027, collected every two weeks all year round. The price would be £69 a bin.
The plan goes to the council’s Cabinet on Thursday 22 October. It is set out in a report by the council’s Director of Environment, which recommends the change without a public consultation (Hillingdon Council, Cabinet report).
For a household with one bin, £69 is £8 less than this year’s £77. For the roughly 7,000 households who now use six sacks, it is not. Two bins would cost £138 a year, £61 more than they pay now.
What would change
The report asks Cabinet to agree:
- wheeled bins instead of sacks: 240-litre bins, which hold about as much as three of the current 90-litre sacks
- fortnightly collections all year, 25 a year, with a two-week break over Christmas
- £69 a bin in the first year, with every extra bin also £69 and no limit on how many a household can have
- no concessions, as now
- a start in April 2027
Today the service is weekly for nine months of the year and fortnightly in winter, about 50 weeks in all. Subscribers get three sacks, or six for the same price, and fasten a new tag to each sack every year. Our bin collection days page has how the current service works.
Where a property cannot take a wheeled bin, the report says sacks will still be available. The council’s assisted collection service also stays for residents who cannot put a bin out because of age or disability.
Why the council wants bins
The report gives several reasons for dropping the sacks:
- full sacks “have been known to be well over 30kgs”, and some cannot be lifted safely by crews or residents
- sacks blow away, wear out, block pavements and are “easily misappropriated”
- some people still put out the free sacks they had before charging began, without paying
- the yearly tags cost about £100,000 to send out
It also argues the bins would mean fewer missed collections, because crews can see them more easily.
Bins make fortnightly collection possible. The report says a fortnightly round from sacks would leave too many of them too heavy to lift.
On the Christmas break, it notes that crews collected 146 tonnes of garden waste in January 2026, against 640 tonnes at the September 2025 peak.
The money
Charging for garden waste began in July 2025, the report says, after the council found it would not receive £65m of government funding over two years.
As of 6 October, 23,105 households had paid for the 2026/27 service, bringing in £1,779,085.
The report expects the switch to save about £0.8m a year. On current subscriber numbers, the net cost of the service to the council would fall from about £0.9m to about £0.1m a year.
Before that, the council would spend:
- about £1.2m on 40,000 bins, taken from its capital contingency budget, enough for every current subscriber with spares for growth and replacements
- hire of six collection lorries with bin lifts, because new ones take 18 to 24 months to arrive; the old fleet would be sold to help cover the cost
If bins arrive late, the report says households can keep using their sacks in the meantime.
Who uses it
Subscribers are concentrated in the north of the borough, where more homes have gardens. Eastcote has the most, with 2,857. Yiewsley has the fewest, with 315. Uxbridge ward has 1,025.
| Ward | Subscribers |
|---|---|
| Eastcote | 2,857 |
| Ruislip | 2,555 |
| Ickenham & South Harefield | 2,121 |
| Northwood Hills | 1,805 |
| South Ruislip | 1,636 |
| Northwood | 1,594 |
| Ruislip Manor | 1,358 |
| Hillingdon East | 1,251 |
| Uxbridge | 1,025 |
| Colham & Cowley | 939 |
| West Drayton | 743 |
| Hillingdon West | 702 |
| Wood End | 689 |
| Charville | 642 |
| Belmore | 604 |
| Pinkwell | 586 |
| Yeading | 472 |
| Heathrow Villages | 417 |
| Harefield Village | 401 |
| Hayes Town | 393 |
| Yiewsley | 315 |
| Total | 23,105 |
The report also notes that 403 of the 4,428 households south of the M4, inside the proposed Heathrow expansion area, subscribe. It warns that losing them “may result in increased charges for other service users”.
How Hillingdon compares
The report sets the plan against five nearby councils, all of which collect garden waste fortnightly:
| Council | First bin | Each extra bin | Discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hillingdon (proposed) | £69 | £69 | none |
| St Albans | £69 | £114 | £30 on Council Tax Support |
| Hounslow | £75 | £75 | £37.50 on Council Tax Support |
| Spelthorne | £80 | £45 | none; bin costs £30 |
| Ealing | £75 | £50 | £50 concessionary rate |
| Three Rivers | £72.50 | £117.50 | £62.50 on some benefits |
Hillingdon’s first bin would be the joint cheapest of the six, with St Albans. Hillingdon and Spelthorne would be the only two with no discount for residents on benefits.
What it means for you
- Nothing changes this year. The current sacks, tags and weekly summer collections carry on to the end of the 2026/27 subscription in March 2027.
- One bin is enough for most. A 240-litre bin holds roughly what three sacks do, and it would be emptied every two weeks.
- Six-sack households face a choice: pay £138 for two bins, or take one bin for £69 and drive the overflow to the tip at New Years Green Lane, as the report itself suggests.
- No room for a bin? The report says sacks will remain where a property is unsuitable. The detailed rules on which properties qualify, replacement charges and where the bin goes on collection day would be set later by officers.
- You cannot comment through a consultation, because the council does not plan one: the report says the service is optional and is not being withdrawn. You can contact your ward councillor before Thursday’s meeting, or attend it in public at 7pm in Committee Room 6 at the Civic Centre, Uxbridge (Cabinet agenda).
If Cabinet agrees, the council says it will write to subscribers about the changes and the timetable before the switch.
Sources
- Hillingdon Council: Garden Waste Service Review and Future Design Options, Cabinet report for 22 October 2026 (recommendations, subscriber figures by ward, savings, neighbouring councils’ charges)
- Hillingdon Council: Cabinet, Thursday 22 October 2026, agenda
- Hillingdon Council: garden waste subscription service (current £77 charge, sacks and tags)
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