Veolia takes over Woking's bin rounds on 6 June 2027, beating Biffa and Suez. The award notice values the four-council deal at £632m with VAT, over 21 years.

The company that will empty Woking’s bins from June 2027 has been named. It is Veolia.

Joint Waste Solutions, the shared service that runs collections for Woking, Elmbridge, Mole Valley and Surrey Heath, confirmed the award on Tuesday 1 September (Joint Waste Solutions). Woking Borough Council published the same statement in its own newsroom the same day (Woking Borough Council).

Veolia replaces Amey LG Limited, which has collected Woking’s rubbish for a decade and is leaving the waste market. We reported the shape of the deal on 30 August, before the winner was named.

What the award notice says

The councils’ own contract award notice, published on Find a Tender, carries the detail the press statements leave out. It names the winner as Veolia ES (UK) Limited and puts a price on the job (Find a Tender, notice 2026/S 000-073078).

  • Value: £526,947,718 excluding VAT, or £632,337,262 including VAT
  • That figure is the councils’ estimate for the full 21-year term, before any inflation adjustment, and it covers all four boroughs, not Woking alone
  • Term: 6 June 2027 to 3 June 2034, with two possible seven-year extensions running to 5 June 2048
  • Award decision date: 3 August 2026, with a standstill period that ended on 13 August
  • Three firms bid in the final round. Biffa Municipal Limited and Suez Recycling and Recovery UK Ltd were unsuccessful
  • None of the three final bidders was a small or medium-sized enterprise

The notice also records something that matters for the next two years: after local government reorganisation in April 2027, “the service area for the purposes of this contract will not change”. Woking Borough Council disappears on 1 April 2027, two months before the new contractor starts, and the contract passes to West Surrey Council.

What changes on your bin day

Nothing, at first. Joint Waste Solutions says that when Veolia starts on 6 June 2027 residents will initially see no change to their collection schedule or services.

The changes come after that:

  • Round changes from September 2027. Veolia plans to redraw collection rounds to “optimise efficiency”. Residents are promised notice well in advance
  • Bookable small electricals, batteries and textiles. These are currently taken in cages slung under the lorries, which fill up. They will move to an online booking system
  • Mobile household waste recycling centres in each of the four areas
  • Trials of AI on the lorries to spot contamination in recycling, plus sensors on street litter bins and bin-weighing technology

Street cleansing is the part of the contract Woking does not buy. Veolia will sweep the streets in Elmbridge, Mole Valley and Surrey Heath, but Woking’s street cleaning stays inside the borough’s separate grounds maintenance arrangement. Woking Borough Council’s own wording is precise on this: Veolia “will manage waste collections in Woking and street cleaning and waste collections in Elmbridge, Mole Valley and Surrey Heath”.

Veolia has also pledged almost £5m of social value over the initial seven-year term, covering apprenticeships, work experience placements and a sustainability fund.

The option that is priced but not decided

The award notice lists a set of services the councils “may wish to implement during the contract period”. One of them is a three-weekly residual waste collection service. The others are bring-site dry recycling collections, a nappy and absorbent hygiene product collection, depot works at Surrey Heath, a depot at Esher, and a contact management service for Mole Valley only.

No decision has been taken on any of them. The point is that the price is already agreed, so a future administration would not have to go back to the market to move Woking to three-weekly rubbish collections. After 1 April 2027 that call would rest with West Surrey Council.

What it means for you

Your bin day does not change before June 2027, and it does not change on the day of the handover either. Our regular guide stays at Woking bin collection days.

Two dates are worth writing down. 6 June 2027 is when Veolia takes over. September 2027 is when the round changes are planned, which is the point at which some Woking streets are likely to be collected on a different day. Watch for the notification rather than assuming your day is safe.

One more thing the notice makes plain. The councils have signed up to a deal that can run to 2048, three unitary-council generations away, and the price on it is an estimate made in 2026. The seven-year initial term was chosen, the council’s own report said, to give the incoming unitary authorities room to change direction.

Sources