COUNCIL bosses are set to be grilled about under-fire waste collection services after it was revealed more than 100,000 bins were missed by Barnsley collection crews in the first two months of the year.

A perfect storm for prolonged disruption throughout January and February was encountered due to heavy snow and subsequent ice as well as the council’s new safety scheme - Be Safe, Work Safe, Target Zero - in the waste industry.

It resulted in Coun Jake Lodge, who represents the Worsbrough ward, issuing a rarely-used call for action after fielding complaints from fed-up residents.

He told the Chronicle: “The disruption to bin collections has been ongoing for nearly two months, in which time I have seen record enquiries from residents in my own ward and I suspect this would be similar across the borough.

“Residents are becoming increasingly frustrated with the disruption and the limited communication.”

The formal action will now see department heads field questions from a scrutiny panel on Tuesday, the Chronicle can reveal.

However, the council said the bin collection service is now back on track - but the cost of the catch-up is estimated to be in excess of £40,000.

A report added: “The service disruption began due to the snow and icy conditions from January 4.

“With the temperatures remaining below zero for a sustained period through the week, we were unable to safely access most roads and pavements across the borough to complete waste and recycling collections.

“Despite the snow plan being implemented and gritting being undertaken to primary and secondary routes, the impact of this was over 100,000 missed collections to recover, with the ongoing need to make the following week’s scheduled collections.

“The council does not have the resources available to double up collections on any given week and recovering missed collections is based on using available spare capacity.

“Due to the timing and severity of the situation being so soon after Christmas and the new year period, the decision was taken to allow residents to present side waste for grey bin collections.

“This decision was to provide extra capacity to residents given consideration for the time of the year and the impact caused by the weather.

“To allow the collection of side waste for grey bins rarely occurs - the team believe that it was more than ten years since this was last allowed.

“This did increase the tonnages being collected and the time it took to collect this.

“There are plans for additional significant investment into the service from April.

“However, the additional costs associated with the disruption are estimated to be circa £40,000, which allowed for temporary additional drivers and loaders to support the catch up.

“The current position - as of March - is that all recovery work on services is complete and we are collecting services in accordance with the collection calendars.

“There are still instances which result in incomplete work, whether this is through vehicle breakdowns or inability to access a street due to poor parking or roadworks.

“These are general daily issues that we expect from our usual day to day service.

“In such instances the service will make best endeavours to return to collect roads where we have not been able to collect from.”

Coun Steve Bullcock, who represents Kingstone, called on the local authority to ‘come clean’ about the issues it’s faced with its service.

He said: “Transparency is now needed - what is going wrong?

“Members of the public have had enough of this poor performance.

“It’s about time Barnsley Council came clean and shared with the public what is going wrong.”

Matt O’Neill, executive director for growth and sustainability, said: “I fully understand and appreciate councillors raising concerns on behalf of residents in light of the recent disruption to waste collection services.

“We’ve made an investment in additional drivers and loaders to mitigate the impact of a perfect storm of bad weather and our ongoing work to improve safety for both waste and recycling staff and residents.

"I’m pleased to say that we’re caught up and all grey, brown and blue bins are now being collected on residents’ normal scheduled days, apart from a small number of exceptions due to routine issues such as vehicle breakdowns, roadworks or obstructive parking.

“I’m grateful to our teams for getting the service back on track.

“I’m sure elected members and residents understand that while we all want bins to be collected on time, it’s vital that this is done safely.

“We’re now focusing our efforts on restarting green bin collections as planned next month, making sure we can do this safely and to the service standards residents expect.”