13,000 bins missed - but ‘no one could have done better’

Series of issues blamed for collection woes

More than 13,000 bins have been missed by crews in just seven months – with council bosses blaming Covid, the fuel shortage and data issues for the scourge.

Gazette analysis has revealed that contractor Canenco left thousands of waste containers overflowing between March and September.

But a Canterbury City Council-published six-month review insists the firm’s performance has been “no worse than would have been experienced by any other contractor” during the pandemic.

Despite noting that the number of complaints he has received about the service has reduced recently, Labour leader Cllr Dave Wilson believes “thousands more” missed bins may have gone unrecorded.

“People were really inconvenienced over the summer and there were some wholly unacceptable events in terms of food bins being missed and having to be left out overnight,” the politician told the Gazette.

“You can’t believe that everybody in a street is reporting their bins as missed – some people don’t have the technology to report it online and we know the software wasn’t reporting it properly.

“I think the true figure could easily be double, or even four or five times higher – we don’t know.”

Canenco took over the district’s waste collection service in February, following years of poor performance from its predecessor, Serco.

The report into the new company’s performance between April and September says the disruption caused by the transition from one provider to another would “usually take six to 12 months to settle down”.

There were issues with the new council-owned digital system, as it became “apparent the details of individual collection arrangements for a number of properties had not been transferred from Serco or were not visible to crews”.

A further upgrade to the

technology is described in the report as the “key to providing Canenco with the tools they need to deliver the service”.

“Covid brought with it complications such as the need for remote working wherever possible, the need for work bubbles, limited access to data and, at times, dramatically fewer staff reporting to work,” the report continues.

“Disruption to fuel supplies had an impact on their productivity for a couple of weeks.

“At the start of the fuel shortage, crews had problems filling up vehicles as they had to queue with everyone else.

“Finally, Thanet District Council volunteered to help Canenco by allowing the vehicles to fill up at the depot in Margate. This meant vehicles had to travel some distance, but at least there was fuel at the end of the journey.”

National driver shortages are also said to have coincided with Canenco “experiencing an increase in employee churn” over the summer.

The figures released by the city council show the number of missed collections peaked in June, with more than 2,700 left uncollected.

“The performance by Canenco over the past eight months, taking into account the fact it was a major transition in extremely difficult circumstances, has been no worse than would have been experienced by any other contractor,” the report adds.

“Before the transfer, the council explicitly understood improvements would not be

immediate and it would take time for services to bed in and improve. That is clearly happening.

“Pockets of problems remain. The council continues to work with Canenco and our supplier to improve the digital system which is crucial to the provision of efficient and effective services.”

Bids for further funding next year have been lodged with the government to help bolster food and garden waste services.

The latter ran into resource issues in the first half of this year as a boom in subscriptions resulted in more than 40% of district residents signing up for the collections.

Cllr Wilson added: “Some of the software still doesn’t do all the things that need doing.

“I can understand why it didn’t work on day one – but they’re still saying it doesn’t do everything they need it to. We’re eight months into the service and I don’t think that’s OK.”

But council leader Ben Fitter-harding believes the “service is up and running well”, and will allow the authority to “focus on the future improvements we want to bring for the benefit of everyone”.

“The data clearly shows that the vast majority of residents are getting an excellent service from Canenco,” he said.

“I have full confidence in the Canenco team. With grounds maintenance transferring in from December 1, Canterbury, Herne Bay, Whitstable and our villages have a bright and clean future.”

‘I can understand why it didn’t work on day one – but they’re still saying it doesn’t do everything they need it to’

10,000 bins were missed over five months