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Thousands of bins across a Kent district will be left overflowing with a month’s worth of rubbish as heavy snow wreaks havoc on collection rounds.
Many bins missed across Canterbury, Whitstable and Herne Bay during the icy weather will likely not be picked up for another fortnight, with the city council continuing on its normal schedule next week.
The authority brought waste services in-house last Monday following years of underperformance by Serco and it is confident it will address the contractor’s failings.
But its new firm - Canterbury Environment Company (Canenco) – has had an unfortunately rocky start to life as the snow forced it to suspend collections this week.
Crews were sent out yesterday (Wednesday) to homes on this week’s schedule where access is most likely, with more collections planned for today, tomorrow and Saturday.
But it is unlikely they will be able to visit properties in untreated side roads, meaning that many residents will be left with bin bags piling up outside their doors until the next set of rounds in a fortnight.
Canenco director David Ford told KentOnline: “We’re not shifting everything back a week.
“Because we work on a fortnightly cycle, if we push it back it messes up the calendar and people get confused as to which week is which.
“The main roads are clear, but the side roads are particularly icy and treacherous.
“We need to think about the safety of the staff and public, so we won’t take the vehicles out if it’s unsafe to do so. They’re big vehicles, so they’re in danger of sliding around.”
Mr Ford says extra black sacks left outside homes missed this week will also be cleared, as he expects them “all to be mopped up” swiftly.
Council officials insist they will “be doing our best to get to as many roads as we can, but cannot guarantee everyone a collection this week”.
Bin men will also be focusing on visiting areas this week in which residents have not had their waste collected since Serco was in charge of the service, and some since before Christmas.
“It’s not ideal, but there’s not a lot we can do about that,” Mr Ford continued.
“There are some bins that haven’t been collected since Serco’s days, so we’ll prioritise those.”
Mr Ford stresses that the delays will not impact the collections of Christmas trees - which have already been pushed back six weeks to March.
Canenco has had a troubled start to its existence following problems brought on by recent flooding and the pandemic.
At the beginning of the year, Serco reported having as much as 30% of its workforce off self-isolating.
Mr Ford says the figure has since fallen to about 15%, adding: “People are being tested now and it’s making it a lot easier, so it’s not the issue it was.”
And when the authority-run company took over the reins last week, it learned that Serco had not caught up with as many missed collections as it had claimed.
“Having been told that some rounds were completed, we then found there were some areas they didn’t manage to get to. It’s disappointing,” Mr Ford added.
“That said, it was during a period they were down on staff and it was particularly challenging for Serco at the time to manage staffing numbers and get out to where they needed to.
"The transfer from Serco to Canenco isn’t a magic wand..."
“The vast majority of bins have been picked up, but there are pockets of areas that have not had collections for some time. It’s a small number.
“I understand it goes back to just before Christmas and there are certainly some from January that haven’t been got to yet.”
The affected areas include Bridge and Nailbourne, Oxford Road in Canterbury and Wincheap.
The council’s decision to take on waste collection duties for its 66,000 homes represents the first time in 30 years it has run the service.
But it will be more costly than the previous contract because, as well as taking on about 120 staff from Serco, a further 27 new jobs are being created.
“The intention is we’ll have more people and vehicles out,” Mr Ford explained.
“When Serco bid for the contract in 2013, they underbid for it - they did not put the money in that was required to deliver the contract.
“We’ve put additional resources in to deliver the service that needs to be delivered.”
Many of the new employees will join a new food waste collection service, while others will man a hotline for residents to report problems through.
Canenco has also bought five new trucks, which will be seen trundling along streets in the next fortnight, that will be specifically used to empty food bins.
But despite the changes, Mr Ford says that Canenco will not be able to fix many of the problems it has inherited immediately.
“The transfer from Serco to Canenco isn’t a magic wand - we’re still learning about what we’ve inherited,” he said.
“We could never have predicted when we made the decision (to bring it in-house) about two years ago that we’d be in the middle of a pandemic and that on week two we’d have snow.
“It’s not ideal, but we’re making good with what we’ve got.
“Over time, there will be a substantial improvement and residents will see that. The aim is for it to be a silent service, whereby it’s running smoothly and delivering when people expect.”
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