TWENTY-four hours after Thurrock Nub News published a story expressing the frustration and concerns of members of Thurrock Council's bin collection team about failings in management of the service the council has issued a statement praising workers' efforts.

In our story Nub News reflected the anger of local bin wagon drivers and loaders who felt they were being made scapegoats for systematic failings beyond their control and that the council was seeking to hide behind spurious excuses such as the recent JustStopOil protests for service delays.

Workers says the problem lies with poor management, the purchase of unsuitable vehicles and cost-cutting associated with the planned switch to fortnightly bin collections due to start in September.

That move as been agreed by council bosses with little public debate or publicity.  The decision to go fortnightly with green bins flies in the face of previous commitments to retain weekly collections by members of the hierarchy of the Conservatives who run the council.

In March 2020, for example, the council's deputy leader and portfolio holder for finance Cllr Shane Hebb said: "Due to our financial handling of the economy in Thurrock, we can confirm we are proposing a modest general council tax increase of 1.49 per cent, something nearly all councils won't be able to do while we continue to provide weekly bin collections.

"We have a balanced budget until 2023 and far from cutting services we are investing in continued improvement including £1.2m for environmental improvements."

That promise has now clearly been broken, something predicted at the time by the same workers who are now commenting again on the service mismanagement. Those workers have pointed out that far from investing in staffing, teams are being cut in preparation for the September's change to fortnightly green bin collections, with no new agency workers being taken on or their existing hours and routes cut back.

Yesterday (Saturday, 23 April) the council sent out 14 teams of bin collectors in a bid to catch up on the backlog that has built up, with many residents across the borough complaining about their bins having been missed, in some instances for several several weeks.

The council statement said:

"In order to address the issues in the waste service caused by recent oil protests as well as operational factors, 14 vehicles and crew were out in many parts of the borough today (Saturday, 23 April). 

"On Monday 25 April, the waste service will be working to the normal collection day, so if your normal collection is on a Monday then the crews will attempt to collect that day. Where there have been missed bins and delays, additional capacity is being added to the service in order to catch up as quickly as possible.

"The council appreciates the importance of a high quality, consistent waste service for residents and acknowledges the hard work the crews are doing in addressing the recent issues. 

"Please again accept our full apology for the recent disruption to the waste service. It is not the standard residents rightly expect nor the one the council wishes to provide. Every effort is being made to address this matter as quickly as possible."

Thurrock Nub News has received many complaints from residents across the borough about failed collections and in some instances health being put at risk by rubbish spilling over or having to be stored in plastic bags.

An example of just one problem area came in this message from a resident in Grove Road, Grays, who said: "The blue bins have not been emptied for two weeks now. I have been unable to log this on the council website as it just say that the bin will be emptied the next day. I think that they don't want complaints to go on their system, people are now putting waste outside the bins and that's not good as the foxes will rip them apart."