Compensation for businesses after waste collection failure

Businesses whose bins were left piling up outside their premises have been compensated by Fife Council.

More than a dozen companies complained their waste was not uplifted by the local authority after it made changes to its collection schedule in April.

Rubbish was left on the streets for days unless business owners took it to the dump themselves.

One café owner in Aberdour said she had been paying the local authority £1,000 a year for uplifts only to have her waste left lying outside.

She took everything, including food, cardboard, cans and plastics, as well as general waste, to council landfill before finally moving to a private waste collection service.

Fife Council co-leader David Alexander said compensation or refunds had now been agreed with 14 corporate clients.

He added that a review of arrangements was being carried out and the situation would be discussed at a future council committee.

Simon Young, service manager for business development with Resource Efficient Solution, said: “There were 14 corporate complaints from companies about service failure and compensation or refunds have been agreed on an individual basis.

“The unforeseen technical issues that were encountered with our re-route temporarily affected the collection service to businesses throughout Fife.

“We reverted back to the original collection schedules in order to resolve the issues in the shortest time possible and service is now back to normal. We are conducting a full review to establish why there was such a significant impact to our service delivery and ensure it is not repeated, and this should be completed in September.”