New bins row over road end collections
Stirling Council has reintroduced a road end waste collection scheme which was delayed after concerns were raised.
Tory councillors say “proper consideration” has not been given before reintroducing the scheme, which sees some properties having to drag their bins to collection points.
Last September council officials proposed that residents in roads with 15 properties or less would have to put their bins at the end of their street for collection.
This was on the back of a road end collections rollout agreed in 2015 but delayed until the new wider waste collection system was put in place and given a chance to bed in.
A planned roll-out in the Balquhidder area had also been halted.
The council says the road end system is aimed at reducing the number of locations where waste collections are made on unsuitable roads, keeping the number of large vehicles travelling excessive distances to a minimum and establishing safe, reliable collection points.
Last year officials estimated that, of the routes likely to be affected by the change, up to 2445 properties out of 7505 would be impacted, around 79 hours would be saved by the collection service and up to 563 or the 3540 miles travelled in the affected areas saved.
Councillor Ross Oxburgh said: “I can see this may be a sensible policy for some properties.
“However, it has a significant impact on the residents affected. The council should not have rolled it out without engaging with residents and all elected members to identify potential problems.
“There also needs to be more notice of these changes.
“The basic bin collecting service is operating very poorly at present and I think all councillors would prefer the service to concentrate on that at the moment.”
Environment and housing convenor Jim Thomson said: “Councillor Oxburgh fails to inform that the current waste policies were sanctioned by his party when they were previously in power.
“Now that they are being actioned, he is trying to distance the Conservative Party from any responsibility.
“Perhaps he ought to ask his colleagues, Councillors Neil Benny and Martin Earl, to explain why they agreed to the proposal in the first place, knowing full well the consequences of this controversial decision.
“The proposals were fully explained at the time and no amount of backtracking can hide the fact that Tory councillor Earl, who was viceconvenor for waste services at that time, agreed to this. He could have rejected the option.”