Council chiefs have apologised to thousands of residents affected by an ongoing waste fiasco after a new bins contractor took over the service.

Homeowners across the county have been plagued by unemptied bins throughout the spring.

It comes after Suez Recycling and Recovery UK took over the £152 million waste contract from Biffa in Ashford, Swale, and Maidstone on March 25.

The service has been dogged by problems resulting in hundreds of complaints from fed-up residents.

Many collections have been significantly delayed, leading some to pay private companies to dispose of their rubbish.

Back in April, Suez apologised to those affected and pledged to catch up with the backlog of uncollected waste by the end of the month.

However, two months on and Swale council - which covers Faversham, Sittingbourne and Sheppey - has issued its own apology letter to those in the borough.

Written by its council leader, Tim Gibson (Lab, Roman) and environment chairman, Rich Lehmann (Green, Boughton and Courtenay), it read: “Many of you will know Biffa who were our previous contractors and have asked why we stopped using them.

“The previous contract had expired and we were required to re-tender for a contractor to run this service.

“We know the start of this contract has led to many customers experiencing problems with collections and for this we would like to sincerely apologise.

“As part of the new contract, new collection routes and vehicles were introduced.

“This will lead to a more resilient service but will need time before this can be achieved.

“The council were aware and were told to expect some disruption as this is usual with a new waste service, but the level of inconvenience to residents is greater than we or Suez expected.”

The letter says increased efforts are being made to solve the issue - including asking Suez to use more vehicles in a bid to reduce the backlog.

It added: “Councillors and officers have been working hard to ensure the service is improving, [and] we are meeting with Suez daily to update them with the problems residents are experiencing and discussing their recovery plan with them.

“We have required Suez to provide additional vehicles and staff at their own cost to undertake catch-up rounds while the new routes bed in.

“We have also re-deployed our own staff to provide support in the customer contact centre and to have additional inspectors monitoring the work of Suez.

“Please be assured the council is actioning every email we receive, even if we are unable to respond.

“The improvement in the waste service remains this council's top priority.”

Swale council previously explained there have been changes to the routes crews use to get around the borough, which have contributed to the backlog.

The local authority said the routes "haven’t been updated for a long time and they aren’t as resilient as they need to be".

However, since the council issued its statement it has cancelled an extraordinary meeting to discuss the issue on June 17 due to the general election.

Instead, the debate will be tabled on July 24 at a full council meeting.

This date will be a month from the contract's three-month grace period which ends on Tuesday, June 25.

A Swale council spokesman added: "A general election has been called for July 4, which means we are entering a pre-election period once the election notices are published.

“During this period we must pay particular regard to legislation covering publicity by local authorities, and be careful about how we use public resources. This is to avoid any perception of trying to influence the election outcome.

“Given the political sensitivity of this time, and with many councillors involved in the election either as candidates or campaigners, we have decided to postpone most council meetings until after the election.

“This includes the extraordinary meeting about the waste contract.

“We know this may disappoint some residents, but we want to assure people that this delay will not affect our ongoing efforts to improve the waste collection service to the level you expect.”