Thousands in Guiseley and Rawdon left with bins full of rubbish (From Ilkley Gazette)
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Thousands in Guiseley and Rawdon left with bins full of rubbish
9:23am Thursday 24th January 2013 in News
Thousands in Guiseley and Rawdon left with bins full of rubbish
Thousands of household were left with un-emptied bins over Christmas because of problems with official communications, councillors were told.
Guiseley and Rawdon councillor Graham Latty raised the issue at a full meeting of Leeds City Council last week following complaints from residents in several wards across the city. Residents say they received notice of changes to their refuse collections too late in the day, with the result that they missed their collections.
Coun Latty, who said 7,500 households were affected, said it was not the first time that residents had been left poorly informed about changes to Christmas bin collections, with similar problems having been experienced in previous years.
He added: “Over the Christmas holiday I was inundated with complaints from residents whose bins were not emptied, because they were not aware their collection day had temporarily changed, and so did not wheel them out.
“In Full Council I asked the Executive Member for Environmental Services if he was satisfied with arrangements to notify people that the day for putting out bins had changed. He was not able to give that assurance but did congratulate the Refuse Staff on sterling work over the holiday. I have no complaint with the operatives, they responded manfully to all my calls to collect missed bins. Coun Latty stressed: “We acknowledge the excellent work of our bin crews over Christmas but as the leaflets were delivered late by an outside contractor, this does not properly explain what went wrong with the notification to residents.
“Clearly in this instance the Council has failed to effectively monitor the contractor’s work, and I really feel that penalties should be applied for this delivery failure. I am told recompense was discussed with the contractor, but I can only assume, given the lack of further information, that this was not forthcoming.”
