Residents leave bins out all day over collection confusion

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporting Service

Residents in the Welshpool area are leaving their bins out all day every day as they don’t know when their rubbish and recycling will be collected anymore, a senior councillor has pointed out.

At a meeting of Powys County Council on Thursday, a motion to review the new recycling and waste collection was debated by councillors.

This follows the shambolic roll out of new collection routes from March which has seen rubbish and recycling left uncollected for days on end, causing anger amongst residents.

The motion had been put forward by Conservative Cllr Gwynfor Thomas (Llansantffraid ) and seconded by Powys Independents' Cllr Graham Breeze (Welshpool – Llanerchyddol).

Cllr Breeze said that the problems were: “Risking recycling participation at a time we need it most.”

He added that problems had continued into the last week.

Portfolio Holder for Waste and Recycling, Cllr Richard Church (Liberal Democrat), who inherited the problems following a cabinet reshuffle in May said: “There’s a great deal in what is being said that I agree with, but this motion has largely been overtaken by events.”

He explained that a report following a review by WRAP Cymru had already been written and would be discussed by councillors at a joint scrutiny meeting next week.

Cllr Church added: “This report has been on the way for some considerable time, it was requested by my predecessor Cllr Jackie Charlton.

“The number of missed collections is falling, it fell to 0.24% in June and in the first week of July it was down to 0.17%.

“Whether this motion is carried or not doesn’t make much difference because what it calls for is already in train.”

Cllr Lucy Roberts (Conservative – Llandrinio) asked for clarity around the missed collection figures.

Cllr Roberts said: “A lot of residents don’t bother to report their missed collections as they are so fed up with it.”

Senior Waste and Recycling Manager, Ashley Collins, said this was based on reported missed collections.

“If people don’t report missed collections it’s very difficult for us to measure that,” said Mr Collins.

Cllr Roberts stressed: “We need to be cautious of those figures.”

Cllr Church said that the estimate of “missed but not reported collections” is 5% of Powys households.

Conservative Group Leader, Cllr Aled Davies (Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant and Llansilin), said: “When you look at the stats it looks as though there is no problem.

“The drivers should know how many missed collections there were, you should not be relying on reported missed collections.

“People are leaving their bins out 24/7 now, because they simply don’t know when the next collection will be.”

He stressed that the new collection routes were a “planned change” and should have a “high level of certainty that the plan was deliverable” before it was rolled out.

Cllr Ed Jones (Powys Independents – Old Radnor) said: “My ward has suffered from this massively. I don’t want excuses and reports, I just want the service fixed, it’s not hard.

“If there are missed collections, surely the staff know where they are.”

But others hadn’t experienced the problems.

Cllr Liz Rijnenberg (Labour – Brecon East) said that in regular ward surgeries with constituents in Brecon, missed bin and recycling collections had not been brought up as a complaint.

Cllr Angela Davies (Liberal Democrat – Rhayader) who is set to chair the joint scrutiny meeting to discuss the WRAP review report next Wednesday, July 15, warned councillors that they were in danger of undermining the scrutiny proces.

She encouraged councillors to contact her if they wanted to have “particular concerns” raised at the meeting.

At the end of the debate, Cllr Thomas said: “I’m disappointed, it would have been nice if the portfolio holder had accepted this motion.

“We’re looking at statistics that mean nothing and a WRAP report that hasn’t been written by him.

“We need action, people are getting fed up of this.”

The council went to a vote which saw 31 councillors vote on favour of the motion and 22, including Cllr Church, voted to abstain.