March refuse service was a load of rubbish
Councillors query lack of collections
Less than three-quarters of households in the Stirling area had their bins emptied on time in the month of March.
At a full meeting of Stirling Council on Thursday, Bridge of Allan councillor Douglas Dodds asked how many households had not had their bins collected on their scheduled day.
It emerged that the target had been met in only 73 per cent of cases – with the SNP/Labour administration admitting that while the knock-on effect caused by the ‘Beast from the East’ accounted for much of the blame, it was not the whole picture.
In January the figure was 78 per cent and in February 88 per cent.
In January, February and March 2017 the figures were 89.8, 87.9 and 85.7 per cent respectively.
The statistics, supplied to councillors at the meeting, showed the route completion figures had peaked at 98 per cent in June and July last year.
Environment and housing convener Councillor Jim Thomson said: “The service is unable to confirm the specific number of properties not collected on their scheduled day. It is currently migrating our route optimisation software [from one computer system to another]. However, we can provide the average monthly route completion figure.
“The significant adverse weather experienced across Scotland over January, February and March 2018 had a considerable impact on route completion. The route completion for this period is similar to that over the same period in 2017, reflective of poor weather conditions.
“The service will be able to provide more detailed information on route optimisation, including property missed data, when Webaspx is fully implemented in the coming weeks.”
Asked by Councillor Bryan Flannagan whether he was convinced the weather was the actual problem, Councillor Thomson added: “This is a very leading question as as you were aware there were breakdowns of equipment etc which had to be taken into account. Are we confident that we will get back on track? Yes.
“We have a working group looking at any issues at the moment. I’d love to be able to say it was all about the weather but there are some issues that needed resolution.”
The council introduced a new waste disposal set-up in autumn, 2016, increasing the number of wheelie bins at each home from two to four.
It was hoped the system would save money, meet targets for the amount of rubbish going to landfill and increase recycling.
The service has since been working under one of its biggest revamps in recent times, however many people have lost patience with the changes which have repeatedly come under fire – including for a £431,000 overspend to date, much of which has been attributed to binmen overtime costs.