Beacon Status

Daventry District Council was awarded Beacon Status by central Government, in March 2006, in recognition of its outstanding performance in waste collection and recycling.

The Government’s Beacon Status is only awarded to the very best local authorities that have proven that they are outstanding in a particular area.

Councillor Chris Millar, Leader of Daventry District Council said: “Everyone is delighted to have received this prestigious award and to have been recognised for our waste management initiatives. Our bid has been successful due to our residents’ support and commitment and to the ongoing hard work of staff. This is not the end; it’s just the beginning, achieving Beacon Council status means we can continue setting the benchmark, nationally, in terms of waste management.”

Every year for the past five years, more than 40 per cent of household waste collected in Daventry District has been diverted away from landfill sites and the latest figures (for 2004/2005) show an excellent overall recycling and composting rate of 45.1 per cent.

The accolade was awarded after the Beacon Assessment Panel had visited Daventry, rigorously inspected our system and interviewed council officers and members. The assessors identified Daventry’s strengths as including its visionary role in the Northamptonshire Waste Partnership, its high recycling and composting rates, the strong cross-party political and officer leadership, strong community engagement and well-developed financial and management systems. The Government Office of the East Midlands said, “Daventry is viewed by this office as being at the vanguard of forward thinking councils both regionally and nationally”.

Daventry has been instrumental in driving waste collection changes not only in the district and county, but nationally too. Its integrated waste and recycling collection service (four bin system) is now known nationally as the Daventry System.

Impressive collection rates and resident support for the service has led to over 80 other local authorities to introduce similar systems. These councils include Lichfield, Harborough, Rushcliffe and Kettering all of which are now reporting significant improvements in the amounts of waste they are able to divert from landfill.

As a Beacon authority our objectives are to share good practice in order to help raise the performance of all tiers of local government on waste and recycling sharing both our challenges and successes, and to provide practical examples and models of good practice that show how successful engagement of decision makers and service users can raise performance levels.