BARNSLEY Council apologised this week after ‘heavier-than-usual’ green bins led to rounds taking longer to complete - but a local councillor has hit out against the ‘excuses’ bosses are using.
During the first two months of this year Barnsley Council’s bin collection crews missed more than 100,000 bins due to the ‘extreme’ weather conditions, as well as the implementation of the council’s new safety scheme Be Safe, Work Safe, Target Zero.
It resulted in hundreds of residents contacting their local councillors about the issue, which resulted in Coun Jake Lodge issuing a rarely-used call for action to the council.
Coun James Higginbottom, cabinet spokesperson for environment and highways, executive director for growth and sustainability Matt O’Neill and Gill Charters, head of waste, recycling and neighbourhood services, answered questions from councillors in the special meeting last month.
It was revealed that to date the disruption has cost £40,000, and the green bin collections - which were due to start in March - were put back to earlier this month.
Ms Charters said at the meeting that the decision to put back the green bins was to ‘minimise disruption’ and that the collections for grassland waste aren’t actually statutory.
But despite the bins starting to be collected, a number of them were missed.
The council has subsequently apologised after ‘heavier than usual’ green bins led to rounds taking longer to complete.
A council spokesperson said: “We’re sorry if your bin has been missed.
“Please leave it out and we’ll come back for it as soon as we can.
“This month’s green bins have been heavier than usual due to the later start of collections.
“This means our vehicles need to be emptied more often, which takes us longer to complete rounds.
“Please bear with us while we get back on track.”
The council added that it has had additional staff working this week.
Coun Chris Wray, who represents the Dodworth ward, said residents in his area are fed up of the ‘excuses’.
He told the Chronicle: “Unsurprisingly, the biggest issue I’m still getting from residents is about bins.
“Last week, green bins were missed.
“This is on top of some areas where other colours have been missed for close to a month.
“What annoys residents are excuses, some repeated from as far back as March 2024.
“Staff training, the weather, a new programme, the weather again but eight weeks later, training again.
“Now, the green bins were delayed a month, and then they were too heavy.
“The mismanagement of this Labour council has resulted in close to half-a-year of consecutive missed bin collections across the borough, costing taxpayers an extra £40,000, and counting, as the situation spirals.
“In Birmingham, military planners have been brought in while the Labour Council there can’t come to terms with workers.
“Let’s hope we don’t need the army here.”
Coun James Higginbottom, cabinet spokesperson for environment and highways, said: “The majority of green bins are very full and heavy, which means that our vehicles get full quicker and it is taking us longer than usual to complete rounds as a result.
"We collect 55,000 green bins each week in addition to the 116,000 grey, blue and brown bin collections.
“We know there are still some outstanding green bins to collect across the borough, so we've put additional collections in place this week and next to get them collected as quickly as possible.
"We continue to prioritise grey bin collections and 95 per cent of recycling and grey collections are being made on the scheduled day, except where our crews cannot access a street due to parked cars.
"If your bin has been missed, please leave it out and we'll come back for it as soon as we can."
