Working from home culture blamed for missed bin collections

Senior city councillor Mohammed Rafique said cars being parked on streets all day made it harder for bin crews to access some areas.

But he praised the service provided by staff as “exemplary”, with less than 0.2 per cent of all collections missed across the last calendar year.

The issue was raised at a council scrutiny meeting on Thursday morning, where Conservative councillor Paul Wadsworth suggested the council’s “performance on paper” was “not what we see on daily basis”.

Councillor Wadsworth, who represents Guiseley and Rawdon said: “It’s the most annoying thing when you pay your council tax and then you come home and your bin hasn’t been collected.”

In response, Councillor Rafique, who is the Labour administration’s executive member for environment, said: “I’ve never hidden from the fact that we’ll always miss bins for various reasons.

“(There’s) Vehicle obstruction and more cars parked on our streets than ever before because more and more people are working from home.

“In the past when people left their homes and went into the office, it was somewhat easier to navigate through some narrow, difficult streets.

“There’s also vehicle breakdowns, roadworks and sometimes we have a shortage of crews.”

Councillor Rafique said the refuse service had improved its performance in 2022, after acknowledging there were “difficulties” in the late summer of 2021.

A spate of missed collections around that time was blamed on a rise in household waste from home deliveries and annual leave being taken by crews, as Covid restrictions ended.

Councillor Rafique added: “If you’re the customer at the end of the day whose bin is missed, then it’s not what you want to see. Nobody would be pleased.

“But on the flip side if there was any service, public or private, achieving more than 99 per cent, that’s exemplary.

“When you’re collecting every bin in the city on a weekly basis, then inevitably some will be missed.

“What’s important is when they are missed, we get it right. 99 per cent of the time we do go back and collect them.”

The council's chief officer for environmental services, John Woolmer, told the meeting that the authority's response to missed bin collection had "improved over the last two or three years".

He also said that Leeds ranked "in the middle" among major cities for recycling rates, but added that its "size, geography and "demography" offered unique challenges.

Labour councillor for Cross Gates and Whinmoor, Jess Lennox, said the service had visibly got better, however.

She told the meeting: “We’ve had a few problem areas in our ward where have bins have been repeatedly missed because of access issues, but the team have been really responsive in terms of sending the crews back.

“I don’t remember a time when we’ve not been able to get something cleared up within a couple of days.

“The responsiveness and the communication has improved.”