FELLOW councillors have been accused of being “more concerned about votes than about doing the right thing” by a Poole cabinet member.

Cllr Xena Dion, pictured, portfolio holder for the environment, said she was “frustrated and disappointed” after cabinet deferred a paper on extending the garden waste collection service and raising the cost.

A proposal to extend the two-weekly green bin kerbside service from 38 weeks to 44 and hike the charge from £31 to £36.80 was rejected by Borough of Poole’s environment and overview scrutiny committee, which recommended an inflationary increase of 80p and no extension.

However the Conservative cabinet deferred the paper to a future cabinet meeting. Cllr Dion said members feared a call-in if they overturned the committee recommendation.

“This was a win, win situation,” said Cllr Dion. “It makes sense for an extended service to go through to the end of November.

“There are huge amounts of garden waste collected in November.

“I’m frustrated because we can’t deliver what our residents have asked us for and it would have helped alleviate some of the financial pressures – there are increasing pressures in social care and children’s services.”

Ian Poultney, environment development manager said: “We thought we had a recipe for a realistic cost people would find acceptable.”

The current cost to residents of £1.63 per collection is currently paid by 21,800 green bin users, and there had been frequent requests from residents to extend the opt-in service, he said. This would have added £20,000 to this year’s £600,000 budget.

“This is a hugely successful service,” said Cllr Dion who said they were now “pursuing options”. She warned that if the borough could not raise more income from people through opt-in services, “we are going to face cuts in services”.

Cllr Tony Trent, chairman of the scrutiny committee told cabinet: “This was scrutiny doing its job and operating as an entity.”

He said: “At worst the effect of the recommendations from scrutiny were cost neutral and at best, based on any significant drop-out from the scheme, it would have saved money.”