Restricting rubbish trucks

A series of crashes has prompted officials to ban rubbish and recycling trucks from collections on several Palmerston North streets and lanes.

Residents at 268 city properties will have to wheel their bins and lug their glass crates and rubbish bags out to the end of their private road or narrow street to be collected from next week.

City council transport and infrastructure manager Robert Van Bentum said there had been a risk audit of where the trucks could safely go.

‘‘The audit was initiated by a number of recent incidents resulting in damage to both council and third party vehicles and property,’’ he said.

Van Bentum said the changes would help meet the council’s responsibilities under the Health and Safety Act. Continuing to collect on the private roads and lanes and for about 20 people on public roads would be likely to expose people and property to the risk of injury.

One of the residents affected, who did not want to be identified, said having to lug rubbish and recycling down the road would be a hassle.

He said he had paid his rates and had his rubbish and recycling collected most of the time – ‘‘they quite often leave us out’’ – and there had been no incidents in the past 15 years that he knew of.

The changes take effect on November 12.