‘Our invisible rubbish is not being picked up by binmen’

An elderly couple in Bath have claimed their rubbish is ‘invisible’ to binmen after their waste wasn’t collected for more than two weeks.

Jean Hucklebridge and her husband Ron, of Marsden Road, Kingsway, pay Bath and North East Somerset Council £44 a year to have their garden waste collected on Friday mornings.

But 88-year-old Jean says two collections have been missed and the waste was finally picked up on Friday, October 12, despite her neighbours not having any issues.

She said: “I really have come to the end of my tether with the council. I reported it again and again and nothing happened. It is not easy for us to move it.

“This is the fourth time this has happened in the last couple of years.

“We pay the council to provide this service and we are not getting our money’s worth. It is unacceptable.

“It’s like we are invisible because this didn’t happen to our next door neighbours, it was just us.”

Jean wheeled the bin to the top of their driveway as usual on Thursday, September 27, so it was ready for collection the following morning.

Unlike Jean’s neighbours, who had their bins collected, she said her bin was missed.

And despite calls to the council, she said her bin was not collected again on Friday, October 5.

The council said the Hucklebridge’s waste was logged as a kerbside collection and that it is not clear who is to blame.

Jean said she was “relieved” when the bin was collected but a council spokesman said they can’t be sure where fault lies over the error.

A spokesman for Bath and North East Somerset Council said: “The initial missed collection report was logged as kerbside rather than garden waste and therefore the garden waste crew were not asked to return.

“However, following a follow up call from the resident the garden waste was collected last Thursday.

“It was initially logged as a kerbside collection, but it’s unclear whether the resident or the person who took the complaint made the error.”