CONWY’S nappy bin collection has been slammed by an Old Colwyn councillor who claims the council has made too many cuts to frontline services.
The council has now apologised over an issue in collecting weekly blue bins as part of the recycling service, as some residents in Tan Lan and Old Colwyn have had to bin nappies in black bags.
Cllr David Carr says the council has increased council tax by around 30% in three years whilst making frontline service cuts.
Cllr Carr criticised the authority, claiming he warned the cabinet that the council’s environment, roads, and facilities department could not cope with the current level of funding.
Conwy, though, have said the problem isn’t a funding issue but one associated with retaining staff, many of whom are employed as more casual agency workers, not council employees.
“I’ve had a lot of complaints from the Tan Lan Estate. They didn’t come yesterday because we’ve only got three drivers because of the cuts,” he said.
“One driver was off sick, and one was on holiday, so they’ve only got the one driver, so they couldn’t do the collection.
“People’s bins are starting to overflow.
“There is not going to be a collection now until next Wednesday. What are people going to do with their nappies? They’ve got to go somewhere.
“It is a public health issue.
“ERF managers have to live within their budgets.
“They’ve only got one driver, so they can’t do all the areas. If the nappy bins are overflowing now, what are the residents going to do?
“It is going to be next Wednesday now before they are emptied.
“People are complaining. It is a health issue. I’ve told ERF management. We can’t have these overflowing bins, can we?”
He added: “My argument is I warned the council about this.
“We are cutting staff in ERF, so we haven’t got cover.
“There was a vote on the nappy collections last year. If we are going to have weekly collections, we need to have sufficient staff to be able to do that. Council tax has risen 30% in three years. People are paying more for less.”
A spokeswoman for Conwy County Council commented: “Unfortunately, we are not able to fulfil all collections on the nappy rounds this week due to staff leave and/or sickness.
“We do try to maintain consistent agency staff for situations like this, but it’s an area of the service we struggle to recruit to and keep fully resourced.
“We will not be able to get back before the next scheduled collection day.
“We’re sorry that the nappy collection service is not as reliable as we want it to be; it’s not what we want, and we are doing everything we can to make it more resilient, but the associated challenges are difficult to overcome.
“There have been no cuts to recycling staff nor agency staff.
“The issue isn’t one of budget. It’s one of retaining staff.”
