Refuse collection info

We have often been asked about refuse collection for holiday homes and whether the Highland Council (THC) include this service as part of the non domestic rate scheme. The simple answer is that THC apply an additonal charge for collection of refuse as this is not included in any non domestic rate charges.

There are a few changes in general for holiday homes waste collection (those on non domestic rates) so I thought it may be useful to publish this info on our blog.

Waste and the Law

Under part II of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 the Highland Council can only collect Commercial, and certain types of Household waste if a REQUEST for the Service has been made and reasonable cost recovery charges are paid. A Service Request form, which also incorporates the Duty of Care waste transfer note, must be completed by all customers requesting a collection service.

The Council may also permit businesses to dispose of waste at it’s waste transfer stations / landfill sites subject to payment of a reasonable cost recovery charge.

The waste producer (i.e. the customer) has a responsibility to fully comply with the Duty of Care Regulations which involves

• Taking care with waste handling and containment
• Describing and quantifying the waste
• Passing this waste only to a registered waste carrier
• or taking the waste directly to a suitably licenced transfer or disposal site

Recycling

From April 2012 all commercial collection services must also include recycling by using either the kerbside recycling collection or recycling permit system outlined above. If any refuse bin contains any cardboard, paper, plastic bottles, food tins and drink cans it will not be collected. The time-scale for this starting in each area is outlined under Kerbside Recylcing Collections.

Kerbside Recycling Collections
From April 2012 all commercial customers in The Highland Council area will be entitled to a separate  Recycling collection enabling them to recycle paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, food tins and drink cans. Standard fefuse bins will not be uplifted if they contain the materials specified above. Customers have the opportunity to use the Recycling Permit detailed above to recycle these materials rather than have a recycling collection.
The planned time scale for recycling collections to be rolled out in Highland are as follows:

• April 2011 – Caithness and Lochaber
• July 2011 – Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey
• October 2011 – Ross and Cromarty and parts of West Ross
• January 2012 – Inverness (Provisional)
• April 2012 – The remainder of West Ross, North, East and Central Sutherland (Provisional)

Until the Recycling Collection service is available in your area please make use of the Free Recycling Permit detailed above.

Recycling Permit – Free Recycling Permit
The Council’s commercial customers can apply for a free Recycling Permit using the formal request form which also incorporates the Duty of Care waste transfer note. This permit enables the Council’s customers to use Recycling Centres and Recycling Points to recycle an amount of material equivalent to the volume of waste collected through the commercial collection contract free of charge. This assists them to reduce the amount of residual waste that they produce and to access the Council’s recycling centres and recycling points free of charge. A wide range of recyclable materials can be recycled and diverted from landfill using this permit – i.e. glass, cardboard, paper, green waste, food tins, drink cans, wood, textiles, paper based drink cartons, plastic bottles.

Collection Charges

The 2011/12 collection charges are outlined below. Please note the recycling charges will only apply to an area when the scheduled change takes place. These dates are outlined in the Kerbside Recycling Collections section.

Recycling and refuse collection charges 2011/12

• 140 litre wheeled bin -
• COMMERCIAL REFUSE Per uplift – £3.46
• COMMERCIAL RECYCLING Per uplift – £2.40
• HOUSEHOLD REFUSE Per uplift (See Note A) – £2.29
• HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING Per uplift – £1.23
• 240 litre wheeled bin -
• COMMERCIAL REFUSE Per uplift – £5.37
• COMMERCIAL RECYCLING Per uplift – £3.58
• HOUSEHOLD REFUSE Per uplift (See Note A) – £3.43
• HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING Per uplift – £1.64
• 360 litre wheeled bin -
• COMMERCIAL REFUSE Per uplift – £7.56
• COMMERCIAL RECYCLING Per uplift – £4.88
• HOUSEHOLD REFUSE Per uplift (See Note A) – £4.63
• HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING Per uplift – £1.94
• 660 litre wheeled bin -
• COMMERCIAL REFUSE Per uplift – £12.72
• COMMERCIAL RECYCLING Per uplift – £7.79
• HOUSEHOLD REFUSE Per uplift (See Note A) – £7.33
• HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING Per uplift – £2.40
• 1100 litre wheeled bin -
• COMMERCIAL REFUSE Per uplift – £20.44
• COMMERCIAL RECYCLING Per uplift – £12.21
• HOUSEHOLD REFUSE Per uplift (See Note A) – £11.45

HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING Per uplift – £3.22

Bin Permit
Once the collection request has been processed and the Duty of Care waste transfer note has been completed, the customer will be sent self adhesive permits for displaying on the bins. It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure that these permits are attached to the bins at all times. A service will not be provided without the permits and waste transfer note being in place. Bins which do not have the current permit attached will NOT be collected.

For more information on refuse collection visit THC website at – http://www.highland.gov.uk/yourenvironment/wastemanagement/refuse-collection/commercial-waste.htm

For owners using our changeover services – As you will have seen above we are unable to collect waste and dispose of this without incurring charges. This is not a service we wish to offer as costs would also have to include a time/mileage charge to transport this to a refuse point making this not commercially viable for our owners. On rare occasions it is necessary for us to remove waste left at a holiday homes, for whatever reason. We are happy to do as an exception but will have to pass charges on if provision has not been made with the Highland Council for appropriate collections. Our charges for this service will be as per THC table above and a flat rate of £0.80 per mile (inclusive of driver’s time) to dispose of this at the nearest council refuse point.

Good Housekeeping Deposits

As we know the vast majority of guests are very respectful and leave a holiday home in good order; damage free and tidy. On the rare occasion when this doesn’t happen and more time than is considered reasonable is required to carry out a changeover you may consider withholding an element (or all) of the Good Housekeeping Deposit (GHD). This may also apply for any breakages or damage.

When you wish to withhold any element of GHD then we have the following process -

Let us know within 3 days of the guest departure date as the contract with the guest states that refund of the GHD will be within 7 days. We usually run this refund schedule on a Wednesday so any Saturday departures are processed on the following Wednesday.

We will write to the guest, usually via email, on your behalf to explain what was found and what fee is to be deducted from the GHD. As it would be reasonable for any guest to be provided reasonable explanation on any claim on the GHD it would be good to have at least a written report from you on what additional work was required and time incurred to bring the property back to the required standard – photographs of any mess or damage would be ideal.

Most guests, if not all, would not consider themselves to be untidy or disrespectful to other people’s property. This being the case then it is likely that any claim on the GHD will initially be disputed. In most cases this is resolved quickly but sometimes not – this is where the photographs come in! As an agent we facilitate bookings and mediate in any dispute. If however we can’t get agreement from the guests that they accept this charge and they wish to pursue a full refund then we may not be able to take this any further and any dispute continuation would be between you and the guest under Scottish Law.  As said at the beginning it is rare that we have to consider any claim on GHD’s and even when there is disagreement in the majority of instances things don’t need to go this far and agreement is reached.

 

Website Enhancements

As you know we invite all guests to give feedback following their stay. We take this opportunity to find out views on our booking process, functionality of our website and the services we offer, using this information to add to our web development schedule. From the most recent feedback we have added 3 enhancements to our website.
One of the main things we hear from visitors to the website when we respond to an enquiry is that they look at several properties across several websites and find it difficult to remember which website a specific property was on and which properties they have enquired about.
As you will remember we recently added a ‘one click’ option of emailing details of a specific property to a friend or themselves, bookmarking a property page or printing the page off. To expand on this, and ensure we maximise the trail back to our website, we have added a wish list feature. Visitors can now build a wish list of holiday accommodation as they browse and email the list to themselves, a friend or family member. We would hope to see an increase in returning visitors to the site with this addition with a proportional uplift in conversions into bookings.

Another popular request is for nightly accommodation outside the area, to help break up a long journey to the Highlands, or within the area to add a day or two in another part of Highlands as an addition to the main self catering booking. To accommodate this extra flexibility requirement we have added a hotel page to the website that’s works in partnership with Laterooms.com. The is designed not to move away from our core self catering business but to add extra flexibility that will help support an increasing demand from mainly overseas enquiries which now account for 13% of all traffic – an increase in 7% from last year’s enquiries and 11% from 2009 overseas enquiries. This feature will allow overseas guests to book accommodation anywhere around the world and may help in making the journey to the Highlands easier to organise from one website.

The last of the current enhancements is the addition of direct link advertising for accommodation and travel related services. The aim is to build on the ‘one stop shop’ principle where guests can take care of all of their holiday requirements through our website.
At present we will show graphic based advertising links to British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa, NetFlights, P&O Ferries, The Trainline, Europcar Car Rental, Hertz Car Rental, Flexinet travel Insurance and Columbus travel Insurance.

We are asked many times for postcode details for holiday homes as many guests arrange a Tesco grocery home delivery on their arrival day. We are considering whether this is a service we wish to facilitate and may start offering direct linking to order groceries. Rather than have direct linking from our website it is likely that linking information will be provided as part of the final confirmation email. The jury is out on this one at the moment.
We will expand on the available range of services bookable via the website and hope to have Easyjet, Flybe & Ryan Air available soon.

As always we will keep you informed of enhancements to our website as they roll out.