Changes to the bin collection rounds have been made in an attempt to save money – the cost of a weekly collection of the grey bins and a fortnightly collection of the green (garden waste), burgundy (glass, cans and plastic bottles) and beige (paper and cardboard) bins is huge.

The Council is trying to even up the workloads on the different rounds. This has meant that Smithills has its bins collected on Tuesdays (or not collected in some cases). There were bound to be ‘teething problems’, but these seem to be going on longer and causing more problems than the Council predicted. Official figures for 6th October (the third week of the new scheme) show that in Smithills 33 roads did not get their grey bin emptied  and 8 roads did not get their burgundy and beige bins emptied. However, we know of other roads not on that list which were affected.

Some of the problems were because the smaller vehicle used for farms and places with difficult access broke down – we understand that has now been repaired.

We note that Council Officers are being left to take the flack – the Executive Member (Senior Councillor) responsible is nowhere to be seen. When there is good news the Executive Members seem to appear as if by magic!

The next change to refuse is that the two weekly green bin collection will move to monthly in the winter months, probably from November.

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