Councillors frustrated over 27,000 unemptied bins

A number of councillors have expressed frustration and concern after 27,000 bins have still not been collected in Derby in the aftermath of Storm Goretti.

Labour-led Derby City Council said "severe weather" caused "unavoidable disruption" that led to refuse crews missing blue recycling and black waste bins across the city on Friday.

While agreeing that cancelling collections was the "right thing to do", some councillors have criticised the authority for a "lack of communication" about when the bins would be emptied.

The authority has since said crews will prioritise emptying black waste bins on Thursday and will then empty blue recycling bins on Friday and Monday.

On Wednesday, Councillor Ndukwe Onuoha, cabinet member for streetpride, parks and leisure, said: "I know residents are not happy and I have offered my apologies personally to councillors.

"I can assure you no one is resting, we all want to see this sorted as quickly as possible."

Conservative councillor for Spondon, Jonathan Smale said there has been a "lack of clarity" from the authority on when bins would be emptied.

"No one disputes the fact that the cancellation of last Friday's service was the right decision to make, but the preceding days after that, the communications that we received were very limited.

"I think black bin residual waste should always be collected, so I want to understand why that hasn't been prioritised as much because certain wards have already had a black bin collection and a blue bin collection.

"Some wards could have had their blue bins suspended whilst all the black bin waste was collected," he added.

Smale said he had received reports of vermin ripping open black bags and had seen rubbish being left in the road.

"No one wants to see black bags in the streets, which has been happening in Spondon. We want that waste to be clear," he added.

In a joint social media post, the independent councillors for Chellaston and Shelton Lock, Celia Ingall, Phillip Ingall and Stephen Lakin said they were "furious" over multiple bins still not emptied in their ward.

Conservative councillor for Chaddesden East, Jerry Pearce, said he wanted to see an end to the "black bin saga" that has occurred since Storm Goretti arrived.

"The frustration really is the communication that we've been getting from the council, even as councillors I don't think we were getting the right messages," he added.

Pearce said one example is when he was told that crews would be heading out into Chaddesden on Monday but residents were left "confused" when only some bins were emptied.

"I think we need to learn from this, especially if there's things like this in the future," Pearce said.

The city council said five crews were out on Monday, four of which collected black bins from parts of Chaddesden, Spondon and Oakwood that missed out on Friday, while the fifth collected black bins areas that were missed on other days due to icy conditions.

On Tuesday, an additional six crews were out collecting missed black bin collections from earlier in the week, the authority added.

In a statement, Onuoha said the council's waste teams had been working "extended recovery rounds across the city to collect missed bins as efficiently as possible".

"We are currently prioritising black bins due to public health considerations. We have also deployed extra crews and spare vehicles to clear missed waste and remove additional side waste where possible," he said.

"Blue bin recycling collections are also being recovered in affected areas where resources allow to prevent further build-up.

"We are currently deprioritising garden waste so that our teams can focus on clearing the general waste and recycling.

"Our teams are working hard to ensure that all bins are collected following challenging weather conditions, and we ask residents to remain patient during this period."

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