New Birmingham City Council leaders urged to ‘save’ weekly bin collections

The new leaders of Birmingham City Council have been urged to ‘save’ weekly bin collections and carry out a ‘city-wide clean-up operation’.

The council, often described as the largest in Europe, is now being run by a coalition which involves the Lib Dems, Greens and various independents after last month’s dramatic elections.

This alliance has an array of issues on their plate but the ongoing bins strike, and the future of the city’s waste collection service, are among the most urgent.

Major changes to bin collections were initially set to be rolled out in phases from this month.

This transformation project would have seen collections of household rubbish go from weekly to fortnightly, along with the introduction of weekly food waste collections and a second recycling bin.

The plans were initially delayed last year due to the bins strike, with the council later saying the changes would be introduced this month regardless of whether the dispute had been resolved or not.

But the authority confirmed in early June that it was “keeping the existing service and will provide a further update once we have a position from the new administration”.

Amid the current uncertainty over the future of the waste service, the Birmingham Tories have argued that weekly bin collections of household rubbish “remain an essential service for many households and should be protected”.

Their group leader, Coun Robert Alden, has also written to new Lib Dem council leader Roger Harmer and Green deputy leader Julien Pritchard to urge them to ‘take immediate action to restore confidence in local services’.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service today, Coun Alden said: “The Local Conservative Group want to see weekly bin collections retained as part of an effort to clean up Birmingham.

“That’s what we campaigned on in the election and that’s why we recently wrote to the administration, calling on them to retain weekly bin collections.

“When you look at Birmingham – a city with larger than average families, a dense population and actually a lot of terraced houses, flats and HMOs – you need to retain weekly bin collections to avoid the scenes we saw during the beginning of the bins strike.

“You had 25,000 tonnes of rubbish piling up on the streets because residents hadn’t had bin collections for a few weeks.”

On what Brummies were saying on the doorstep during the build-up to the local elections, Coun Alden said: “Residents were desperate to see a legal and fair solution to the bins strike that didn’t saddle the city with more debts for the future.

“[They wanted] to see the streets cleaned because frankly in Birmingham over the last 14 years, we’ve gone from being voted the cleanest city in Britain to a city that’s had an 18-month bin strike and the threat of fortnightly collections being introduced.

“That’s why we need to clean up Birmingham and that’s why we need to see weekly bin collections being protected.”

In his letter to the new administration, Coun Alden set out four priorities for cleaner streets that he believes should form the “foundation of a fresh start” for Birmingham:

• Protect weekly household bin collections.
• Secure a lawful and sustainable end to the waste dispute.
• Launch a city-wide clean-up operation and consider dedicated ward based clean up crews.
• Restore recycling collections as quickly as possible

Coun Alden said: “The new Liberal Democrat-Green administration has inherited a city facing significant challenges and residents will rightly expect to see a different approach.

“Across Birmingham, people have endured over 18 months of disruption to basic services.

“Communities want cleaner streets, reliable waste collections and a council focused on delivering for residents”.

He continued that Birmingham needs leadership that focuses on “delivering well run core services”.

“This is an opportunity for the new administration to turn the page and show residents that the council is listening by saving weekly bin collections and cleaning up our city,” Coun Alden went on to say.

“Where they bring forward measures that clean up the city and improve services for residents we will support those changes, and we will hold the administration to account where it fails to deliver.”

Birmingham Reform, now the largest party on the council but not involved in the coalition, also wants to see weekly bin collections of household rubbish retained.

“Residents in Birmingham want an efficient, weekly waste and recycling collection service that works – not more net zero tick boxing that makes their lives more difficult,” the party said.

The Birmingham Liberal Democrats said before the elections that they would “maintain weekly collections until services have shown themselves to be completely reliable for a significant level of time”.

Asked whether the Green Party would continue with plans to introduce fortnightly collections, Coun Julien Pritchard said before May 7: “No party is going to have an overall majority, we’re going to have to see what all the parties around the table are saying.

“For me, the most important thing is to get the waste service to be reliable.”

The previous Labour administration at the council argued that the waste transformation plans would have brought Birmingham “into line with other councils, improve recycling rates and provide a service our residents need and deserve”.