SWINDON Council will be bidding for a slice of the £20m cake on offer by the Government to help with recycling rubbish.

The chance for more cash has been announced by Environment minister Elliot Morley, who said the Government was fulfilling a commitment made on November 19.

But Swindon will have to wait until all bids from rival councils are in and evaluated before it will know the size of the grant it will receive.

A Swindon Council spokesman confirmed the authority would be bidding for the money.

Mr Morley said: "We promised to reduce spending pressures on local government in the waste area."

Mr Morley expects councils to be able to save about £10m a year if they streamline their waste management operations.

The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme has been delayed by a year until 2005.

"Our aim in distributing the grant is to ensure that it addresses the pressure each local authority faces to invest in its waste management services next year," Mr Morley said.

Andrew Cook, Swindon Council's recycling officer, said: "We are doing well on the money we get at the moment.

"We currently offer recycling services to 30 per cent of households in the borough but we would look to increase that if we received extra funding.

"We would also improve green waste collection and facilities for household waste.

"In 18 to 24 months time we would like to be able to offer a full kerbside recycling collection."