Residents protest and call for end to bin strike

Dozens of Birmingham residents affected by the ongoing bin strikes have gathered to demand the council and union get back to the negotiatng table.

Campaigners held banners outside the city's council house and chanted for the issue to be resolved. The strike has dragged on for than a year.

"We've had enough of people having a go at our city, we've had enough of the way this dispute has been handled," organiser Bishop Desmond Jaddoo told Radio WM.

The council said it would be going ahead with a new waste collection regime in the summer, even if industrial action continued. Meanwhile, residents in Hockley did not had their waste collected on Thursday, leaving black bin bags strewing the streets.

Mr Jaddoo said protesters outside the council house in Victoria Square on Tuesday wanted to be heard.

"We pay our council taxes, we expect a service but we're not getting that service.

"Now internationally, Birmingham is known as a dirty, rat infested city and we the people, have to say, enough is enough," he added.

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Adrian Pembleton, the headteacher at Anglesey School in Lozells, described the school's struggle with increased fly-tipping, litter, and pest problems due to the strike.

"When it's been warm in the weather, we've had issues with rats, seagulls and flies because the bins aren't being collected correctly enough, and we're having to chase the council just to try and get some basic services done.

"I'm really upset and disturbed by it," he said.

A recent report by the council has revealed that the forecast one-off and direct costs of the strike will total £14.6m if it continues to the end of March.

In response Unite's Sharon Graham said the council had "squandered millions of council taxpayers' cash."

Mr Jaddoo said he had invited the council and union for a meeting he would mediate but the authority appeared "to be reluctant."

Councillor Majid Mahmood said the union had been invited on "on multiple occasions to make a proposal to end the strike, which we would fully and carefully consider, but they have declined to do so thus far."

He said the council's door remained open for Unite.

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