A contractor responsible for the late delivery of thousands of new recycling bins across Barnet has been fined £100,000.

SSI Schaefer was put in charge of distributing more than 330,000 new containers for Barnet Borough Council when it brought the borough’s recycling service in-house and introduced a new system in October.

But the contractor missed its deadline and was a week late delivering more than 11,000 of the bins.

Barnet Council had spent months preparing the switch-over and Councillor Dean Cohen, in charge of the change, said at the time he was “apoplectic” with the distributor for failing to meet its targets.

The authority announced it would look at fining SSI Schaefer, and this week it emerged the firm was penalised approximately 25 per cent of its £371,250 contract.

Councillor Cohen, the cabinet member for environment, said: “There is no secret we were unhappy with the delivery of the bins.

“After a firm discussion with the distribution company we have saved £100,000 on its tender price, about 25 per cent of the delivery cost of the bins. I think that is a fair conclusion to the matter.

“The overall message for recycling has been incredibly positive, with people recycling almost twice as much as they were before we rolled out our new bins.”