One of the biggest shambles ever has been complaints on bins issue

You will remember a few years ago when we had two really bad winters in a row. I certainly won’t forget them.

Apart from the bad underfoot conditions in the places where it was possible to walk, as a councillor I had to deal with numerous complaints from members of the public at all times of the day and night, which, of course, is part of my job.

In 22 years as a councillor I hadn’t received as many complaints as I did at that time – until now.

Over the last few weeks I have taken more complaints than I did back then, but this time the issue isn’t caused by the weather but rather bin collections.

And the sad thing is, it all could have been easily avoided.

During the build-up to the local elections in May, there were clear promises made by Labour that there would be no changes made to the bin collection cycles.

It’s funny how these promises were delivered during the election campaign.

After the election, the meeting which finally decided the change in the collection cycle was held in June, and the Labour group decided they wanted to go ahead with the changes they promised just weeks before wouldn’t happen.

The SNP group – although agreeing we had to recycle more – moved an amendment to the Labour motion.

We felt there should be a delay in implementation until next spring, so the department could have time to carry out a public consultation.

As events have proven, a great number of residents would have been able to inform the officers they did not have all the bins they required, and everything was not in place.

There is no doubt that had this consultation taken place, we would not have had a fraction of the problems we’ve faced.

Unfortunately, the Tories backed Labour for this to go ahead immediately, and in my opinion North Lanarkshire is still in the midst of the biggest shambles I have known in my time on the council.

My colleagues and I are still receiving complaints about it; I had one where unemptied bins had been left for weeks.

But thanks to the senior manager I emailed, I believe these have now been emptied.

I also believe the council officers have done a tremendous job in an impossible situation, and I was particularly annoyed when I heard a few Labour councillors had been criticising and blaming council officers for the problem.

I am positive the people to blame are those politicians who voted for the immediate change; namely the Labour group, supported by the Tories.

I don’t know when this problem will be solved; I would hope for the sake of the public it will be sooner rather than later.

And it is for this reason we have requested a special council meeting on the matter, because we were not allowed to discuss it at the last council meeting a few weeks ago.

Rubbish Bins have been left on pavements for days, even weeks