Update to communal collections – is the council in denial?

On 8th August I wrote to the Director of City Operations and Cabinet Member concerning the appalling inconsistency of waste collections to flats and HMO’s with communal container bins.
Today I have received a response as follows:

Dear Councillor Knowles

Thank you for your email. Please see response below provided by Head of Service for Waste.

Thank you for your enquiry regarding the collection from communal properties.

As you note in your email the City Council has made a commitment to ensure all residents, regardless of property type, receives a minimum of one collection a week. Whilst this has been challenging to deliver we are pleased to report that circa 97.2% of all flats are receiving a weekly collection. However it should be noted that a lot of communal properties in the City are scheduled to usually receive more than one collection, and whilst we are taking excess in the short-term, this does not fix the problem long-term. With this in mind we are currently reviewing the operational resource we have available to us and trying to identify if there is a means whereby we can provide a more consistent, scheduled collection.

Once we have developed a solution we will share it with Elected Members through the Cabinet Member briefing process.

I hope to meet with the Director at a briefing next week, but in the meantime I have written back the following. It seems to me they are in total denial about what is happening on the ground:

Dear Cllr Mahmood and Richard

Thank you very much for the reply.

I am pleased to hear you are trying to find a way to provide a more consistent, scheduled collection for flats and HMO’s. I hope it will be treated as a priority.

I would really like to see the evidence that 97.2% of all flats are receiving a weekly collection and how that figure has been reached. 

I’m afraid it just does not add up in the experience of residents with communal containers in my ward and I expect other wards across the city. 

I have multiple properties that are being left 3 to 6 weeks between collections and that I am flagging up regularly on behalf of residents.

I also dispute that crews are routinely taking excess waste.  Some crews are doing this but more often the  containers are emptied and the excess piles of waste are left behind.  I attach a photo of one block of flats where this happened only today. It means residents are having to re-fill the bins with the excess, meaning they need another collection much sooner, or more often their management companies pay for the bins to be filled and the stores cleared, which is a charge to the residents.

Most of these properties would manage with one collection a week but that is simply not happening.

Best wishes

Izzy