Holywell residents slam Flintshire Council over missed bin collections

Angry residents in Holywell have called out Flintshire County Council over missed bin collections in recent days.

Many homes in and around Holywell typically have their bins collected on Saturdays – but due to the New Year all bin collection days were moved forward 24 hours.

The snowfall then caused further disruption, preventing collections on Sunday.

One resident, who did not wish to be named, said the missed collections highlighted a problem with waste management in Flintshire.

“These are dire issues in our county at the moment,” he said. “Collections that were due on normal bin days on Friday and Saturday were not collected.

“It is understandable that collections on the Sunday were not made due to adverse weather conditions.

“It is quite clear that it is the usual poor management of our council services and not having the resources available to carry out the collections.

“Flintshire County Council have currently removed the facility to complain about this issue from their website.”

He was not the only aggrieved resident.  On Sunday, Matthew Turner posted in the Holywell Community group on Facebook: “Why are the bin collections still messed up? All the bins on my street have still not been collected and there was no snow yesterday.”

And Karen Guest added : “My black bin is full and I recycle everything. I have a family bin and still can’t cope with all the waste.”

Flintshire County Council said there were a number of reasons for the missed collections – which were focused on the outskirts of Holywell – but assured residents that their rubbish would be collected.

“As the Bank Holiday on New Year’s Day fell on Wednesday, January 1, all collections for this date and subsequent days were each moved forward by one day,” said Katie Wilby, Chief Officer for Streetscene and Transportation.

“This was widely communicated to residents of Flintshire via social media and the council website. Bins in the Carmel area are normally collected on a Saturday, therefore residents’ revised collection day moved to the Sunday, January 5.

“However, all collections due on that day were suspended due to the adverse weather.

“We also experienced issues with access to some roads in the county last Friday due to parked vehicles. These were either collected on Saturday or yesterday (Monday).

“Due to the high volume of anticipated missed collections due to the snow and ice, the reporting facility online was temporarily disabled to reduce the impact on staff resources responding to the impacts of the weather.

“We are aware of the areas that have not been collected due to the weather over recent days and we are prioritising resources to collect black bins that were missed Saturday, January 4 and Monday, January 6.

“Due to current resource levels, we are unable to return to collect recycling and food waste that has been missed. We apologise for any inconvenience and advise residents to store items securely and place them at the kerbside on the next scheduled collection date for recycling.”

Ms Wilby also warned residents there could be more disruption in the coming days.

“The cold spell of weather is likely to persist throughout this week,” she said. “This may continue to disrupt waste and recycling collections in some areas of the county. Updates will be posted on social media and on the council’s website and residents are encouraged to check there before reporting a missed collection.”

By Alec Doyle – Local Democracy Reporter