AS many as eight local authorities across north Essex could share services including waste collection in a bid to save money in the face of tightening town hall budgets.

Leaders and senior management from Colchester, Tendring, Epping Forest, Uttlesford, Chelmsford, Braintree, Harlow and Maldon met to agree which elements of second tier council services could be pooled.

Specifically they looked at planning services as well as waste collection responsibilities.

Neil Stock, leader of Tendring Council, said: “We together represent a million people – that is a heck of a geography and a heck of a lot of population with Stansted in the west and Harwich International Port in the east and two cities Colchester and Chelmsford as well as many market towns and rural communities.

“You have the Central Line tube station at Epping Forest and a coast line in Tending.

“And we have agreed to work together to see what savings can be made in sharing services.

“Can we work together to do planning across either whole of that area or clusters within that north Essex area?”

Almost £1 million has been earmarked to develop a new zero landfill waste strategy for Essex County Council.

The authority, which is responsible for waste disposal, says its Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy is out of date and is now in the process of developing a new one Mr Stock added: “Lockdown has shown that local government can be delivered remotely.

“The biggest prize and one we spend the most money on is waste collection and disposal.

“In Essex there are 12 waste collection authorities and we all collect different things in different ways. And then we have one disposal authority which takes all the rubbish and gets rid of it.

“It is a vastly expensive thing to do to collect it and get rid of it. And undoubtedly savings can be made if we had some conformity across the county.

“We are staring down the barrel of cutbacks or face massive problems if we don’t make some tough decisions.”