A rise in waste dumping fees which angered landscape gardeners has been postponed until the end of this month.

Lieutenant-Colonel David Burch said that finance minister Curtis Dickinson had agreed to delay the increase, which he conceded was “implemented late and without proper notice”.

The rise means truckers who previously had to pay $25 at Marsh Folly Dump will now have to pay between $25 and $125, depending on the size of their vehicle.

Colonel Burch, the public works minister, said amendments to Government Fees Regulations were passed by the House of Assembly in March, without objection from the Opposition.

They were intended to become effective on April 1, but were not implemented for six months because of a computer programming problem.

The glitch was finally fixed and the new fees implemented without warning last Tuesday, which shocked truckers who were disposing of waste from Hurricane Humberto.

Colonel Burch said: “I understand from the Ministry’s technical officers that, as a result of a computer programming problem, those fees were unable to be programmed into the system at that time and so they were not implemented as expected by me and by the Legislature who had considered and passed the fees.

“Several public officers have been working to correct the problem but none made senior management of the Ministry aware of the issue. It took six months to solve the problem and, without notice, the fees were activated on October 1.”

Colonel Burch said Mr Dickinson is responsible for the Government Fees Regulations. He continued: “I have consulted with him and can confirm that he has agreed to continue with the original fees to October 31. Thereafter, the revised fee structure will come into effect.”

The fee was changed from a standard $25 per load to:

• Light truck: $25

• Intermediate/heavy truck (IN/HA): $50

• Heavy truck (HB/HC): $75

• Heavy truck (HX): $100

• Tractor trailer dumpster (TT): $125.

Disposal of construction waste, white goods and metals at the Airport Waste Management Facility was also increased from $20 per load to $30 per load.

Colonel Burch said the fees “cover a variety of government services not just tipping fees” and noted that they had not been increased in several years.

He added: “The operations at both locations are heavily subsidised by the taxpayer, even with the marginal increases.

“The fees for services at Marsh Folly have been staggered to better reflect the amount of foliage being delivered there in order to bring equity between an intermediate trucker and a trailer truck, all of whom pass the haulage fees on to the customer.”

He added: “In this case, I wish to apologise for the inconvenience and confusion caused especially in the wake of the recent hurricane and all the work ongoing to restore Bermuda’s beauty.”