Cornwall bin crisis: council apologises

Cornwall Council has apologised after thousands of people were left with rubbish piling up outside their homes.

It's received seven thousand complaints since Cory Environmental took over the contract for rubbish collections at the start of the month. The company was given an 8 year contract worth 125 million pounds.

Paula Phelps, a resident of Callington told us: "I have seen rats crawling all over the bags. It's a health hazard and it's directly next to my house. It's an eyesore and it encourages other people to fly tip on top of it all".

Paula is certainly not alone in saying the council's new waste contract simply isn't working. It was taken over by Cory Environmental almost three weeks ago. In just one of those weeks, there were more than seven thousand complaints about waste not being collected.

Mark Ashley is part of this three man team today covering St Austell. He works for Cory Environmental but also worked for its predecessor. He is acutely aware of the problems.

"The rounds we're all doing are all new to us. As you can see we've got big trucks, some of these trucks you can't get into the small lanes but the company is getting smaller trucks in and more resources."

In Looe, missed collections are just one of the gripes. Many residents say they're still waiting for the bags they need to recycle their rubbish.

Cllr Edwina Hannaford says: "The rollout's been an absolute fiasco. I've been inundated with residents saying I haven't had my box I haven't had my bags I haven't had my refuge collected."

And with so many people across Cornwall complaining, does the man from Cory think it's up to the job?

Nigel Carr from Cory told us

"Ninety eight and a half per cent of residents have received their regular service. Given the scale of the operation we're rolling out I accept that in some places we haven't got it right and to those residents I do apologise."

That's a start say residents three weeks in. Now Cory must prove it can put things right.