RESIDENTS are being urged to sign up to the council's green waste collection service online – to avoid paying an extra £3.

The authority will begin charging for garden waste collections from March 7.

It has introduced an annual fee of £30 per green bin for the service for people who sign up online.

Those who sign up via Contact Warrington – either in person or by phone – will have to pay £33.

The fee covers collections over nine months, from March to November.

Collections will be made once a fortnight, with a three-month winter break.

Cllr Judith Guthrie, executive board member for the environment, said: "We don't want to introduce this charge but we have suffered £90 million of Government-imposed austerity cuts in recent years and must find another £41 million by 2020.

"This means that we have to take a critical look at every service we deliver or commission – especially non-statutory services such as this.

"Garden waste collection isn't a statutory service but we still want to provide it and we hope that many of our existing customers will continue to recycle their green waste.

"The charge amounts to just 58 pence per week over the course of a year, it's similar to that already charged by nearly half of the local authorities in England and the revenue will help us continue to provide essential services to the people of the borough.

"Residents are still able to use the council's recycling centres for free if they choose not to have their green bin collected."

Leaflets explaining the changes to the garden waste service are currently being distributed to households across the borough.

To sign up online visit warrington.gov.uk/gardenwaste.