VOLUNTEERS running a community composting scheme say a county council decision to slash the money paid to them by more than half is short sighted and could jeopardise the project’s future.

Sustainable South Brent oversees the project at the Marsh, off Exeter Road, which allows villagers to bring as much green waste as they like, and leave with compost.

The project means many tonnes of garden waste each year does not have to be dealt with by the district and county councils.

Sustainable South Brent identifies a host of other benefits like carbon reduction, the service offered to people who may struggle to get to council recycling sites, the way the project brings people together and forges links within the community, and the group’s ability to make grants to local organisations.

Since the Marsh project started in 2011, Devon County Council via South Hams Council has paid money through ’recycling credits’, per tonne of waste dealt with. But now Devon County Council has said it will no longer be supporting the Community Composting Network, and from April 1 next year, the rate paid will fall from £56 per tonne to just £25.

Sustainable South Brent members Penny Wainwright, David Butcher and Martin Duckworth attended last Monday’s meeting of the parish council to discuss the issue.

Mr Duckworth set out the benefits of the scheme, but noted there was uncertainty over whether Dartmoor National Park Authority would introduce a charge when the current rent-free period finishes at the end of January next year.

If Sustainable South Brent had to pay rent for the site, along with the reduced recycling credits payment, he said, the survival of the Marsh could be in doubt.

Mr Butcher questioned how much money had really been paid to community compost sites by Devon County Council. He said in five years the South Brent scheme had received around £7,000 in recycling credits - a ’tiny’ amount as a proportion of the county council’s total budget.

He presumed the aim was to reduce overall spending, but added: ’We would like to make clear, there are aspects of our activities they have ignored, and this will have effects in the community.’

Mrs Wainwright said she had hoped county councillor Rosemary Rowe would be at the meeting so concerns could be put to her directly. Cllr Cathie Pannell, who sits on the Dartmoor National Park Authority said she would try and find out what DNPA intended with regard to introducing rent.

Councillors agreed to put in a freedom of information request to Devon County Council to find out how much had been paid out to community compost schemes.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Butcher explained that the money received is put into a sustainability fund from which grants are paid to local organisations. £6,500 had been paid out in the five years the Marsh had been operating, helping provide double glazing for the hall in the Recreation Ground and the Old School House, new nets for the cricket club, and a footpath and greenhouse for the allotment association.

He said at any one time, around 25 tonnes of material is in the process of being turned into compost at the site, and in total just over 100 tonnes of compost had been given out since 2011.

He added: ’We rather suspect that not that much money is being paid out, and we also suspect they don’t yet have a new waste contract, so they don’t actually know how much it will cost. We’d like clarification on all this.’

A spokesman for Devon County Council said: ’Community composting groups receive discretionary recycling credits of around £50 per tonne, which is roughly the same as the rate we currently pay for dealing with composting waste.

’However, we have recently secured a new lower rate contract from April 2017 which is in the region of the national average of £25 per tonne to compost this waste.

’We will continue to support community groups, but our discretionary recycling credits have to reflect the price we pay for this waste. We cannot justify using tax payers money to continue to pay them a higher rate when we could manage the waste more cheaply ourselves under this new contract.’

The spokesman added the money previously used to support the Community Composting Network would now be used to fund a team of recycling advisors across the county.