Call to restart bulky waste collection in Plymouth denied
Councillor Sue Dann said it would be 'irresponsible' to bring in another service
A plea by the Conservatives on Plymouth City Council to restart bulky waste collections early in December was voted down by the ruling Labour group.
The service was suspended due to the pandemic.
Tory shadow Cabinet member for environment Maddi Bridgeman claimed there had been an increase in fly-tipping due to lockdowns.
Her motion to a meeting of the full council on Monday afternoon called for the Labour administration to restart bulky waste collections from Saturday, December 5, or alternatively set up free-to-use community skips at Covid-secure locations.
The meeting heard the bulky waste service was expected to be reintroduced in the spring.
Labour said fly-tipping had not gone up, and the service could not restart just days after the end of the current lockdown due to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
The Conservative motion was defeated by 20 votes to 32.
Cllr Bridgeman said that Conservative councillors had reported more than 270 incidents of fly-tipping between April and October.
Conservative Glenn Jordan said the call was about “doing the basics”.
He said there had been a 40 per cent increase in fly-tipping in Plymouth according to government figures, and claimed a survey last year rated the council as one of the worst in the country at dealing with the problem.
He accused the Labour administration of allowing the situation to get worse, and added: “The very things that are being dumped on our streets, they have stopped collecting them.”
Labour Cabinet member for environment Sue Dann said she had tried to contact Cllr Bridgeman to change the date in the motion, which would have meant Labour could have supported it, but that had not been possible.
Cllr Dann said the council could not bring in the bulky waste service at the end of a lockdown three weeks before Christmas.
The issue was not about safety, it was about having the people to be able to deliver the service.
She accused the Conservatives of being interested in “political game-playing” rather than compromise, and of having “no understanding” of the challenges faced by the refuse department.
Cllr Dann acknowledged that some people missed the service, but said bulky waste accounted for less than one per cent of the material taken to Chelson Meadow by residents.
The councillor said unlike in the first lockdown, the recycling centres were still open and there were more than 400 carriers who could collect waste on behalf of residents.
The councillor said the city was still in lockdown and what would happen next was uncertain. Services had been affected by the pandemic with staff self-isolating, and the council was continuing to prioritise household waste collections to empty more than 130,000 bins a week.
Cllr Dann said extra staff and vehicles had been put in to maintain the household collections, and added: “It would be absolutely irresponsible to bring in another service and add more pressure.”