Communities secretary Michael Gove has said the Government should not ‘dictate' to councils on waste collections.

Speaking to councillors at the Local Government Association (LGA), Mr Gove said he sympathised with local authorities as they await much-delayed plans to align waste collections across the country.

The LGA's resources board chair, Peter Marland, said Milton Keynes, where he is council leader, was among the best-performing authorities for recycling rates and questioned the need for the reforms.

He asked Mr Gove to confirm ‘you are not going to dictate to us how to collect waste in the next few years' and urged him to refrain from ‘telling everybody in this room how to collect their bins'.

The minister acknowledged concerns raised by the District Councils' Network about the need for different approaches - for example, in urban and rural areas.

Mr Gove said he had made the point to his counterpart at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Thérèse Coffey.

He added: ‘I have stressed the point we trust localities rather than dictating to them.'