Terms and conditions
This contract is between the individual customer (“you”, “your”) who has applied to receive, and paid the subscription fee for Cherwell District Council’s annual residential property, places of worship and village hall Garden Waste Collection Service (the “Service”), and Cherwell District Council (“our”, “us”, “we”). It sets out the terms and conditions under which you may use the Service. The Service can only be provided to properties located within the Cherwell district.
The service period and the fee
1. The Service runs for a period of 12 months from 1 March to the last day of February the following year. The Service will commence on the next scheduled collection day following your sign up or after your ordered bin has been delivered.
2. The annual subscription will be published on our website (the “Fee”). The Fee will be reviewed annually in accordance with our fees and charges policy.
3. The Service applies in respect of each garden waste bin (the “Bin”), which shall be collected on a fortnightly basis, throughout the period between 1 March to the last day in February the following year, except collections which fall during the Christmas and New Year Period or where circumstances beyond our reasonable control prevent or severely hinder Us making collections (please see clause 21 for further details)
4. We can provide you with more than one Bin only if you purchase more subscriptions. We publish the prices for additional subscriptions on our website. We reserve the right to refuse to provide any subscriptions where we consider that commercial activity is taking place.
5. The Service will not be provided until you have paid the fee in full. Payment of the Fee can be made online or through our Customer Service team via a credit or debit card. We accept cash payments only in exceptional circumstances, and you must contact our Customer Service team, who will determine whether to accept a cash payment or not. The full amount of the fee is payable whenever a customer registers to join the service, even if part-way through the subscription year, and no pro-rata adjustments are available.
6. The Service does not automatically renew. If you wish to continue to use the Service each year you will need to pay an annual subscription fee. We will remind you on three occasions prior to your subscription ending and if we do not receive payment we will then cease to provide the service to you at the end of the current subscription year.
Cancelling the service, moving house and refunds
7. 1 Our Contact Points
Our E-mail address: customer.service@cherwell-dc.gov.uk
Our Telephone Number: 01295 227003
Our Address for Letters Bodicote House, White Post Road, Bodicote, Banbury, OX15 4AA.
7.2 You can cancel your subscription within the 14 days following payment by e-mailing, or telephoning, or writing to Us at one or more of the contact points set down in 7.1 above.
You must return the garden waste licence label.
If you cancel your subscription after the 14 days following payment, We will not give You a refund.
8. If you move, we do not provide a refund. However, if you move to another property within our district your subscription can be transferred to the new address. Please contact us so your garden waste subscription record can be updated.
9. We do not provide refunds if collections are disrupted by inclement weather, where access is temporarily disrupted, in the event of industrial action or in other unforeseen circumstances beyond our reasonable control that prevent or severely hinder Us making collections.
10. If you no longer require your subscription, please contact us now and We will collect your bin. We reserve the right to enter your property to remove the Bin when the Service ends for whatever reason.
11. If you require a new licence label you will be charged a small fee.
Liability
12. We accept no liability for any damages, loss, costs or expenses incurred by you arising under or in connection with the service other than liability that cannot be excluded by law. Our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence is not excluded.
Your Legal Rights
13.Nothing in these terms and conditions affects your rights at law.
Using the Service and Collection
14. We will provide bin(s) to you if there is not one at your property when you subscribe to the service and we have received payment. The bin(s) will remain our property throughout the Service. We will repair or replace damaged bin(s) free of charge. We cannot guarantee that you will receive a new bin(s) when you sign up to the Service, but we will ensure that the bin(s) is in a serviceable condition. We aim to provide the bin within 10 working days of you subscribing to the Service, but we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.
15. We will provide you with a subscription licence label(s) to attach to the bin(s) for each year that you subscribe to the Service. You must ensure that you attach the subscription licence label(s) to the bin(s) in accordance with our instructions. If our collection crew cannot see your subscription licence label, then the collection crew will not collect the bin and we will not rearrange a collection.
16. We will only collect garden waste from the bin(s) which we have provided to you. We will not collect garden waste from any other container(s). We will not collect garden waste from a bin which is overflowing to the extent that the lid of the bin cannot be fully closed, or from a bin which is too heavy for our collection crew to safely handle. In such circumstances you will need to remove some of the waste from the bin before the next scheduled collection day in order that we can collect it.
17. We will only collect loose garden waste from the bin(s). This includes matter we collect as listed on our website and in our information booklets. If we consider the bin to contain matter which we cannot collect, then we will not collect it and we will place a “contamination hanger” on the bin. You will then be responsible for removing contamination or disposing of the waste in the bin yourself. If we regularly find that the bin has been contaminated, we will contact you to offer advice. If we find that the bin continues to be contaminated, then we will suspend the service to you and may remove the bin.
18. The bin(s) must be presented at the kerbside by 7am on the scheduled collection day. If the bin is not presented by this time, not clearly visible and/or not accessible then the bin will not be collected, and we will not return to collect the bin until the following scheduled collection day. Our collection crews will not enter on to private property to collect the bin, unless you are entitled to an assisted collection service under our policies for other waste.
19. We will not be responsible for any costs which you may incur in disposing of any waste via a third party in any circumstances.
20. If you correctly presented the bin and we have not collected it, then please report this to us within three days. We will then try to rearrange a collection as soon as possible.
21. We do not provide the Service over Christmas, New Year. We may change scheduled collection days from time to time to help drive efficiencies, to cater for more residents, operational difficulties, unforeseen circumstances out of our reasonable control, on change of service provider or to maintain an effective service.
We will publish all such rescheduled collection details on our website.
22. We cannot guarantee that the service will operate during times of particularly inclement weather, where access is temporarily disrupted (other than for individual households), in the event of industrial action or in other unforeseen circumstances beyond our reasonable control that prevent Us making collections. In such circumstances, you should still present the bin on your scheduled collection day we will try to collect it once the circumstances permit.
23. If the content of the bin has frozen, such that it is not possible to fully empty it, then we will collect any remaining waste on the next scheduled collection day.
24. If we are unable to collect your bin because access is temporarily disrupted (other than for individual households), or there is industrial action or because of other unforeseen circumstances beyond our reasonable control then we will try again the following working day. If we are still unable to collect your bin, then we will try again at the next scheduled collection day.
25. By using this Service you are complying with your Duty Of Care for the removal of garden waste in accordance with section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Personal data
26. We will hold and process your personal data to provide this Service to you. By agreeing to this Service, you are also giving us permission to process your personal data and share it with third parties. We will ensure that we comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation in processing your personal data. More information about how we use your personal data can be found in our privacy policy and privacy notice on our website.
27. You must inform us of any changes to your personal data.
Complaints
28. Complaints can be made via our *Complaints page* on our website or by writing to Us. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman will consider some complaints, please refer to the Ombudsman’s website.
Changes to these terms and conditions
29. We will publicise all changes to these terms and conditions on our website. We will not make any major changes to these terms and conditions during an annual subscription period, unless we are required to do so by law.