"We'll have covered the whole city by the end of the week"

Residents across Birmingham are hoping a plan by the city council to collect all rubbish by the end of this week will prove successful following weeks of strikes which have left much of the area without bin collections as waste continues to pile high.

Last Friday, Jacqui Kennedy, Birmingham City Council's Corporate Director of Place, told ITV Central that the council intends to have all the streets cleared by the end of this week. She said:

It is unclear if Miss Kennedy meant today as the end of the working week (Friday) or Sunday by the end of the calendar week.

It comes as the council's own figures suggest 75% of waste has been collected to date, a 15% increase from last Friday.

This means they have at most 72 hours to collect the remaining 25% in a week where it has so far taken 7 days to collect just 15%.

It comes after a dispute between refuse workers and Birmingham City Council which has been caused by the downgrading of 113 jobs from grade three to grade two, resulting in a salary loss of around £4,000 per worker (on those grades).

Whilst the council insist other grade three jobs are available for those affected by the cuts, the union representing the refuse workers claim many of those roles are unsuitable for bin men.

From today, refuse workers will be striking every day for an hour at 07.00, 10.30 and 13.00.

As it stands workers go on strike for two hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon.

Since all industrial action is carried out at base, three individual striking hours means workers will travel back to the depot on three separate occasions, resulting in less time spent collecting rubbish.

The industrial action is scheduled to continue until 21 September.

MORE:ITV News Central put a series of the same questions to both sides in the increasingly bitter dispute about refuse collection in Birmingham.

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