"Disgusting" - Lancashire homeowners' outrage as council pauses recycling collections & warns of 2 week delays
Residents of West Lancashire have hit out after the borough council announced recycling collections are on hold.
The council have said that no collections of blue and green bins will take place until August 14, and then there will be a two week wait beyond usual collection days. For instance, if your expected collection day was August 13, you will now wait until August 27 for the service.
The issue - which has been ongoing since the end of July - has been blamed on a range of workforce and equipment woes, and residents aren’t happy.
£300 a month in council tax - and what for?
One said: “Being told that our recycling won’t be collected for two cycles (a month) is disgusting - it’s a basic service. We pay just over £300 per month council tax, an additional £35 per year for brown bin collection. We’ve heard a pleathra of excuses from been down wagons to a lack of staff, and now it seems they are blaming the fact the wagon has to drive back to Skelmersdale to empty.
“Surely when they have to collect all the additional recycling when they eventually collect all these problems will compound the issue, I can’t see them getting on top of it now, in all honesty - it’s the summer holidays when everyone is home, creating more waste than usual. Wonder if we’ll get a rebate next year?”
What the council say:
A statement said: “We understand how important reliable waste collections are and we’re sorry that recent delays have fallen short of the high standards customers expect and deserve from us. Our waste collection service has recently faced a number of challenges, including reduced staff availability for overtime, vehicle breakdowns and roadworks resulting in route diversions. These pressures have made it difficult to maintain high service levels.
“To help us catch up and restore reliable service, we’ve made the decision to prioritise general waste (grey bins and waste sacks), along with garden waste subscriptions, meaning a pause to green and blue recycling bin collections.
“General waste collections (grey bins and waste sacks) and garden waste subscriptions will continue as normal on your usual collection day.
“We would like to clarify that no collection of blue and green recycling bins will take place before 14 August. This includes collections still outstanding so please re-present your bin on your revised collection date in the table below.
“Staffing has been increased and our dedicated crews are working extra hours to get things back on track as quickly as possible. Recycling collections will resume on 14 August.
“We know this will cause inconvenience for our customers and for this we sincerely apologise. We would like to thank residents for their patience and understanding while we resolve this issue and ask them to please visit our website for the most up to date.”
For details of recycling centres in the area as well as new dates, visit: https://www.westlancs.gov.uk/refuse-recycling.aspx