ERIC Pickles has been told to come clean and admit the real pressure forcing councils to move to fortnightly bin collections.

Council leaders say the money Mr Pickles yesterday offered them to save weekly bin rounds was substantially less than the rise in landfill charges he is about to force on to local authorities.

In a rising war of words North East council leaders say that if Mr Pickles truly wished to see weekly bin collections kept he would scrap a rise in landfill tax.

And one council even warned they would have to put up council tax just to meet the various conditions Mr Pickles’s bin plans would bring with it.

Mr Pickles has retorted with claims that the “town hall Taliban” did not understand local voters.

City leaders in the North East say they will pay out far more in landfill taxes than they can ever hope to receive from Mr Pickles’ £250m bin fund, from which they are not guaranteed to receive a payment.

In Newcastle, for example, the council is hoping to secure £800,000 a year from the fund, but it will pay out more than £2.5m a year in landfill charges. The council is not moving to fortnightly collections, but it is thought it would reduce landfill with increased recycling if it did.

Councils yesterday told The Journal landfill costs would on average be three times more than the weekly bin fund.

In Gateshead, council leader Mick Henry made clear last year his decision to go for fortnightly collections, set to be introduced this year, was the “morally right thing to do”.

Gateshead Council director of local environmental services, John Robinson, said: “The money on offer from the Government works out at less than 4p per household per week when spread across the country ... and we would have to bid against other councils to get it.

“We would then almost certainly have to spend much more money to introduce additional recycling schemes and bins for food waste. This would inevitably cost local residents much more on their council tax bills than we will get back from the Government through this scheme.”

In Durham, council leader Simon Henig said the council had to cope with multi-million-pound cuts while at the same time seeing landfill costs rise by £1m this year.

Terry Collins, Durham County Council’s director of neighbourhood services, said the council would most likely keep to its plans for alternative weekly collections.

He said: “Importantly, the top 20 performing waste collection authorities nationally all operate alternate weekly collections. With this independent evidence in mind we anticipate that by introducing alternative weekly collections we will reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill, offering significant environment benefits.”

Mr Collins said that by increasing recycling rates in this way the council could save up to £12m in the next five years.

He added: “This should be considered within the context of the Government’s guidance that it is unlikely to be able to support any bid for funding that is higher than £5m.”

Mr Pickles’s Department for Communities and Local Government has insisted the bin collection fund takes into account the tax issues facing councils.

One of the three criteria for Government is assessing funding bids from councils is whether proposals will deliver improved environmental benefit.

Mr Pickles said: “Rubbish collections are the most visible service that people get for their £120 a month council tax bill.

“But barmy bin rules have made putting out your rubbish more complicated than solving a Rubik’s cube. The public are fed up of all the bin do’s and bin don’ts.”