Swindon bin collections to finally be improved following major disruption

Wiltshire residents will finally see a return of normal bin collections at the end of the summer holidays, council bosses have claimed.

Swindon Borough Council said the end of the break, combined with the introduction of new dustcarts and staffing practices should ease recent problems.

Up to 10,000 houses a day in the area - almost a third of daily collections - have been hit with delayed recycling and bin collections in recent months.

The cabinet member with responsibility for refuse collection at Swindon Borough Council, Chris Wats, came under fire at a recent scrutiny committee.

He told members of the committee: "There have been three factors that have caused the increase in dropped collections.

"The fleet of lorries is right at the end of its life. There have been breakdowns, there have been times where a truck hasn’t even got out of the yard and there have been two calls to the fire brigade in the last three or four weeks.

"There has also been a shortage of drivers – there are some on long-term sick and in the summer holidays there have been more drivers off.

"The third issue is budgetary; it would cost £1,000 a day to hire trucks to plug the gaps and we don’t have that sort of money."

He said a new fleet of vehicles will be brought in as part of a reorganisation of the collection of waste and recycling, including rolling out of food waste collection across the borough, later in the autumn.

Coun Watts also said new drivers had been hired and the council was working on a plan to create a hybrid loader-driver role.

Credit: Aled Thomas, Local Democracy Reporter