Thursday, January 29, 2009
Uproar at missed bin collections
Figures obtained by a Labour councillor show that there were almost 3000 complaints about missed bin collections to the city council in the last four months. Following Tory cuts to the number of crews and staff in the City's refuse collection service last October, most city residents had their collection day changed, leading to a huge increase in the number of complaints by residents to Cityclean, the council's in-house refuse and recycling service.
In October alone there were almost 1400 calls. Prior to the cuts in the number of bin crews, complaints averaged at around 250 a month.
Councillor Warren Morgan, who chairs the council's Environment scrutiny committee, said,
"I have had a number of complaints from residents about missed collections over the past four months, and the letters page of the Argus has shown how many people have been angry that their bins have not been emptied, sometimes for weeks at a time."
Residents face even greater disruption to their recycling service in February as more crews are cut and collection days change, at the same time as communal bins are introduced across the city centre.
"Cityclean staff are doing their best to implement the multiple changes forced on them by the Tory council," said Councillor Morgan, "but I'm very concerned that if recycling collections are missed people will be discouraged from recycling their waste. This would be a disaster after the years of work put in to building up the city's recycling service under the previous Labour administration."
Councillor Morgan intends to raise the issue of service cuts and missed collections with the Cabinet member for Environment at todays city council meeting.
