Councillors have voted to reduce the frequency of brown bin collections to a fortnightly service from next year.

Following a meeting of the full council, the number made through the year will drop by half from 50 weekly collections to 25.

The annual fee for these bins to be emptied of garden waste, however, will remain the same at £52.50 despite this reduction.

This decision comes after Council Leader Owen O’Donnell warned earlier this month that the council is facing significant financial challenges to close a projected budget shortfall of £15m for 2025/26.

Councillor O’Donnell said cuts to services would be required to help close the budget gap and this would impact the services the council delivers to the public.

East Renfrewshire's garden waste permit scheme was introduced in June 2021.

According to the council, almost all local authorities in Scotland either charge for garden waste collection, which is a non-statutory service, or don’t offer such collections.

The local authority said that East Renfrewshire is the only council that has continued to offer a weekly garden waste collection.

A report, discussed by councillors, detailed that the estimated cost of providing a weekly garden waste collection in 2025/26 is £1.9m and while around 22,800 garden waste scheme permits were sold this year, the forecast income from permit sales is £1.2m, £700,000 less than what it costs to run the service.

In order to “reduce the cost of heavily subsidising garden waste collections”, the council has now agreed to change the frequency of brown bin collections to a fortnightly service from 2025/26, which it says will “bring it into line with neighbouring councils".

Reducing the service to 25 collections throughout the year will save the council around £350,000 which it stated will "contribute to the overall savings the council needs to make in the year ahead".

The report by officers says a decision had to be taken now to allow enough time for a fortnightly collection to be introduced from next May.

Further information will be issued ahead of permit renewals in May.

It remains an opt-in permit system and anyone who doesn’t require their garden waste to be collected can still use their brown bin for food waste.

Food waste collection remains a statutory service and is collected from brown bins without the need for a permit.

Residents also have the option of purchasing additional permits.