‘We want our bins back’

7:42am Tuesday 22nd August 2006

FRESH controversy surrounds the city's green bin scheme after the council made moves to remove some from a York street.

The Labour Party has criticised City of York Council for giving the garden waste bins to residents in Fossway, only to later tell them they cannot have them collected.

A council spokeswoman said a number of green bins had been delivered "in error" and affected residents had been asked to leave them out to be collected.

"All of the bins that were left out for us have now been collected. We apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Neighbourhood services chief Andrew Waller added: "We received a request to remove bins that were not being used. They had been issued to people in flats in error. Where they were cluttering the place up, we have taken them away."

But Heworth Labour Coun Viv Kind hit out at the council for retrieving the bins, highlighting that the area has a number of houses and flats with gardens.

She also said the lower house numbers in the street had been receiving a green bin collection for months.

"I have been chasing this up since June following complaints from residents who kept putting their green bins out only to find that they weren't being emptied," she said.

"One resident even phoned the York Pride Line, to be told that the street doesn't even have green bins because they were all flats.

"They are not all flats and they clearly have had the bins. It's just that the council has refused to collect them. This is a serious point because people living in one part of the Fossway are getting a different service to those at the other end of the street."

Labour's Neighbourhood Services spokeswoman Ruth Potter added: "The Lib Dems clearly still don't know what is going on with their bin collections.

"They are delivering bins to people and then months later telling them they won't empty them, even though people further down the road are having it done.

"I know the whole city has not yet received green bins, but the bin lorry actually goes down this road anyway. This is further evidence of their ill-thought approach.

"They shouldn't have given the bins out in the first place if they weren't prepared to actually empty them."

Coun Waller said flats were not being provided with the green bins because they do not have gardens. He said: "However we are aware of individuals who work in communal garden areas and it is helpful to provide them with a service because we want to maximise the amount of waste is composted and recycled.

"That's how we will reach our 36 per cent targets."

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