Local council reimposes weekly bin collections after public left furious by reduction in service

Basildon Council has approved the return to weekly black bin collections following overwhelming public demand and complaints about rubbish piling up on streets.

The Labour-led Essex council made the decision at a cabinet meeting on Monday night, promising to restore the service by spring 2025.

The move comes after the previous Conservative administration introduced a controversial fortnightly collection system last year, which led to significant public backlash.

Council leader Gavin Callaghan told the meeting a sobbing nurse had complained that the current system made her and her neighbours feel “like second-class citizens”.

The change will make Basildon only the second council in Essex to maintain weekly refuse collections.

The controversial fortnightly collection system, introduced in November 2022, required residents to sort their waste into six different sections, replacing the previous pink bag recycling scheme.

Callaghan described unprecedented scenes of “literally 70, 80 black bags piled high on street corners that had not been collected for weeks and months”.

Residents complained that lingering rubbish posed public health risks, with some reporting that waste sacks were prone to being blown away.

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Labour councillor Aidan McGurran said the previous Conservative administration “got it spectacularly wrong” with the bin system.

“People are paying the highest level of council tax in history, they should get a basic service, which for me is a weekly black bin collection,” Callaghan added.

A public consultation revealed overwhelming support for the return to weekly collections, with 73.2 per cent actively backing the change.

Only 8.1 per cent of residents opposed reverting to weekly collections, which McGurran described as a “thumbing majority” that was “pretty overwhelming”.

“When we were elected in May, we said we would fix the bins, and tonight I can announce what residents have been waiting for,” McGurran told the cabinet meeting.

The council also announced plans to replace the current blue and white recycling sacks with disposal bags as part of their commitment to “fix the bins”.

The administration promised to implement stronger enforcement measures once residents have “the actual tools necessary to do the job”.

The weekly collections are set to resume in spring 2025, with final approval required at a full council budget meeting in February.

Former Conservative leader Andrew Baggott warned Labour they would need to “look at what services you might need to cut to deliver that”.

However, McGurran expressed confidence in delivering both weekly collections and a balanced budget, emphasising “financial prudence” as central to the administration’s approach.

Currently, only Brentwood Borough Council maintains weekly collections in Essex, while Southend-on-Sea City Council plans to move to fortnightly collections in 2025.

The trend elsewhere shows some English councils, such as Bristol, are even considering monthly collections to reduce costs.