Case Study: Peterborough City Council achieves streamlined, cost-effective garden waste payments with GoCardless

Quick to set up and integrate with existing systems, plus lower processing costs

Peterborough City Council, which serves around 84,000 households, needed a simple, reliable way to collect a newly introduced annual charge for garden waste collection that now covers £800,000 of the service cost. Regular Direct Debit was identified as the most efficient payment method, but integrating Direct Debit through the council’s existing payments provider was too complex and expensive, so the council turned to GoCardless to manage online subscription and direct debit payments.

GoCardless delivered a cloud-based Direct Debit/online subscription solution that was quick to set up and integrate with the council’s systems and API, avoiding costly custom integration. The vendor’s service reduced processing costs, enabled automatic renewals to improve on-time payments, and made the garden waste charging model financially viable — helping cover the £800,000 annual cost while streamlining administration.

Peterborough City Council

James Collingridge

Partnership Manager