“It is just not good enough” Hayling woman faces not having her overflowing bin collected for six weeks
She is having to ask for help from family
“It is just not good enough”. A Hayling Island woman has expressed her anger after a series of collection problems will lead to her recycling bin not having being collected for six weeks.
Deborah Cooper is now being forced to ask family for help to cope with the overflowing recycling - and still has to wait for another two weeks for her bin to be collected.
“I’m giving family a bag of recycling to take home when I see them just to help us out,” she told The News.
Ms Cooper’s full recycling bin was not collected from outside her home in West Lane on the May 25 by crews, despite those of her neighbours all being being collected and it being in the correct position outside her house.
“To add insult to injury next to our full bin they left our neighbour’s emptied bin,” she explained, which was the start of a situation which led her to contact Havant Borough Council to report her missed collection.
However her missed collection coincided with problems across the borough throughout May. Norse SE, the council’s contractor, has been collecting many refuse, recycling and garden waste bins a day or more after collection dates. This has resulted in bins being left out in residential streets across the borough for days with many people unsure when they will be collected.
As a result, Havant Borough Council, which alternates rubbish and recycling collections, has announced that it is suspending recycling collections for this week across the south of the borough to deal with the backlog.
But for Mrs Cooper this now means her next recycling collection will be on June 22 - six weeks after her last collection was on May 11.
“I’ve phoned the council twice and emailed three times and all you get is the same cut and paste answer. This situation isn’t great for anybody, but they have acknowledged that our situation is worse. But say there is nothing they can do about it. It is just not good enough”.
The Hayling Island resident, who shares her home with her partner and two dogs, has said that as well as enlisting the assistance of friends and family she has also been forced to put recycling into her normal rubbish bin.
“It is something I absolutely hate doing,” she explained, “but what else am I supposed to do?
“We had a delivery of dog food the other day and my heart just sank because the box it arrived in was four foot tall.”
As previously reported by The News, problems have plagued much of the borough for the whole of May with delays to collections as a result of what the council has described as 'unexpected circumstances'.
The News has previously contacted Havant Borough Council to ask for an explanation about why the delays are happening, but it has declined to give specifics.
But in a statement councillor Netty Shepherd, cabinet lead for public realm, said: “We’re working hard to restore a normal service for waste collections as soon as possible - a one-week suspension of recycling collections will enable us to that.
“We recognise this is inconvenient and apologise for that - it’s not at all ideal, however we’d only take this measure if it was necessary. We do thank people for showing patience whilst crews work through the backlog and return people’s waste collection service to schedule.”
Havant Borough Council is suspending kerbside recycling collections in Bedhampton, Brockhampton, Broadmarsh, Denvilles, Emsworth, Havant, Hayling Island, Langstone, Leigh Park, West Leigh, Warren Park and Warblington areas for one week from Monday, June 8.