More than 1,000 people have signed up for controversial £30 garden waste permits in Aberdeen- on the first day applications opened.
City council bosses have confirmed that the number of registrations had hit four figures as of “late afternoon” on Monday.
Earlier this year, the ruling Conservative, Aberdeen Labour and independent administration announced the new charge would be active from September.
It was part of budget proposals aimed at trimming more than £40million from the council’s spending for the year.
Once paid, “tamper-proof” stickers can be affixed to brown bins so that garden waste can be collected from them.
Collecting food waste will still be free.
Yesterday, concerns were raised that some residents were struggling to access the online registration- with Liberal Democrat group leader Ian Yuill writing to council chief executive Angela Scott after a constituent told him she could not register for the service online and was told to try again the next day.
However, a council spokeswoman said there had been “no issue” with the website.
She said: “The ‘MyServices’ link was available from 8am on Monday morning with the first application received at 8.13am.
“A second link was made live on the ‘Garden Waste’ information page at 9.30am. More than 1,000 successful applications were received by early afternoon on Monday.”
Council leaders have previously defended the charge by arguing that many local authorities across Scotland charge for garden waste collections.