Festive bin delays defended by council chief after some North Warwickshire residents had to wait four weeks for collections

A council chief has defended the performance of North Warwickshire refuse crews following criticism that some homes had to wait four weeks for their bins to be emptied over the festive period.

Cllr Shelly Ann Lebrun (Ind, Curdworth) raised the matter at this week's meeting of North Warwickshire Borough Council's community and environment board.

She said: "People had to wait 28 days for the rural collections and 22 days along the main streets. That was at the height of the Christmas period when normally people's bins are overflowing anyhow and I think that has contributed to a lot of fly-tipping. That is a long time to wait."

Richard Dobbs, the council's streetscape corporate director, explained to councillors that it was a tricky balancing act.

He told the meeting: "We have a problem over Christmas in terms of trying to balance the needs of our staff to have time off – they get the same week's break as the rest of the council staff.

"We do our best to schedule collections in the run-up to Christmas and then afterwards to ensure as few people in the borough are disrupted for as little time as possible. But because of the nature of a rural area it is difficult.

"It is not perfect but it is a difficult balancing act and more often than not I think we get that balancing act right. I do appreciate that there will be some areas that have to wait a little bit longer than others."

Mr Dobbs also explained that the council's waste service was busier than ever due to more people working from home. It also coincided with staff absences due to the ongoing Covid-19 situation meaning extra costs.

He added: "There was an explosion in the amount of people staying at home and putting an enormous strain on the service. Costs increased as a result of having to put extra crews and vehicles on to cope with the extra waste.

"There were also absences to contend with. To some extent that has stabilised but we still have members of staff off – at the moment we have about a ten per cent absence rate. Most are self-isolating because of incidents within their family or close contacts although we have a couple who have tested positive.

"Members will also be aware that from next month for four weeks we will no longer be collecting green waste which will also give us some respite.

"We are still collecting more than in a 'normal' year – residual waste is up 16 per cent and recycling up 15 per cent – but we are managing to cope with that without having to put too much additional resource in. But there are pressures on the service as I'm sure members can understand."