Garden waste collection needs ‘root and branch’ review, says councillor

A councillor has called for a “root and branch” review of the council’s garden waste service after persistent missed collections.

Independent councillor Peter Atkinson, who represents North Portslade, has contacted Labour councillor Tim Rowkins, the council’s cabinet member responsible for the service.

Councillor Atkinson has also written to senior managers in Brighton and Hove City Council’s environmental services team, formerly known as Cityclean, who run the service day to day.

He said: “It is the issue I currently get most contact about in North Portslade – and people are beginning to vote with their feet and unsubscribe from the service.”

There have been repeated missed collections in North Portslade for many months, he said, and there seems to be no proper administration or organisation of the service.

It is one of the only collection services in the city that residents pay for – it costs £102 a year – but residents say that their bins are regularly missed.

They complain that there appears to be no meaningful way to report this and arrange a catch-up collection.

Some residents have gone six to eight weeks without a collection, Councillor Atkinson said.

The subscription scheme was changed a few months ago, in June, and this “apparently changed the way in which a missed collection would be recompensed for”.

In the past, the annual subscription was just extended but there is now meant to be financial compensation.

No proper communication has been sent out about this, however, and residents struggle to get any information back from the council’s garden waste office.

Councillor Atkinson said: “I’m sure the staff are doing their best but there is clearly something very wrong with the way the whole service is organised and run from the central office to the collection crews themselves.

“Some people may think that this is just a minor issue but it’s annoying and frustrating to pay for a service and then not receive it, with the brown bin remaining full to the brim for weeks on end.”

The council said: “We recognise that some residents have experienced missed garden waste collections and understand the frustration this can cause, particularly as this is a paid-for service.

“We are currently carrying out a detailed review of the service to better understand the issues being reported, including collection performance, customer contact, and operational processes.

“This work will help us identify where improvements are needed and ensure the service meets the standards residents expect.

“Our crews continue to work hard to deliver services across the city and where problems have occurred, we are committed to learning from them and making improvements.

“We will use the findings from this review to strengthen the resilience and reliability of the service.

“We would encourage residents who experience ongoing issues to contact the council so that individual cases can be investigated and, where appropriate, resolved.”