MORE than 1,000 York homes are still waiting for their bins to be collected in the wake of last week's strike action by council workers.

But the green and grey bins will be left in drives and gardens until Friday - the earliest time City of York Council street collection workers will be able to pick them up.

The 1,035 homes, in the Rawcliffe area, are all that remain of the thousands of residents who saw their bin pick-ups disrupted by last week's industrial action by Unison members.

The union took action on Tuesday in protest at Government plans to alter their pension rights, affecting staff who may wish to retire before the age of 65.

The Evening Press reported on Saturday how thousands of householders faced seeing rubbish pile up - meaning many would have had to wait as long as 21 days before the green and grey bins were finally collected.

There had been fears that few refuse collection crews would learn up for work, but a council spokesman said it was able to pick up from more homes than it had originally expected.

Crews were able to visit about 4,000 houses - leaving only half the expected 2,000 "high risk" homes, who were warned they were unlikely to receive a Saturday collection, still waiting to be picked up.

Those who worked gave priority to terraced streets in Clifton, where residents put their waste out in black bags.

Many bins were also collected in Knapton, Poppleton and Beckfield Lane.

The crews will now not return until Friday, but waste from both the green and grey bins, along with any side waste produced as a result of the disruption to the service, will be collected on that date.

John Goodyear the council's acting director of commercial services, said: "We managed to get to the majority of the households affected by last week's strike action, but extend our sincere apologies to the residents in the Rawcliffe area that we just couldn't reach."

Updated: 09:51 Tuesday, April 04, 2006