Missed bin collections in Southampton could be hundreds of thousands
The leader of the Conservatives says the figure of 15,000 could be an underestimate
Council figures for the number of missed bin collections in Southampton have been labelled “nonsense”, with claims the real numbers are significantly higher.
Southampton City Council from the start of the year until early August there had been 15,395 missed bins.
Conservative opposition group leader Cllr Peter Baillie said this number only accounted for residents who had made reports to the local authority.
He suggested the figure could be in the hundreds of thousands based on daily updates given on roads where bins were not emptied as scheduled.
Cllr John Savage, Labour cabinet member for environment and net zero, said there was a difference between a missed and a late bin collection.
The subject of the poorly performing waste service was raised at a council meeting on Wednesday, September 24.
Cllr Baillie said: “Your answer saying 15,000 missed bin collections this year.
“You know it’s a nonsense. We know it’s a nonsense.
“That is 15,000, at best, people who have officially complained.
“Every single day and I think it’s excellent, we get a list of roads where they have had missed collections.
“If you add up those roads from earlier this year to now you are looking at over 6,500 roads missed.
“If you average 50 per road, that is well over 300,000 bins missed.
“Are you going to apologise to the people of Southampton for missing 300,000 bins, not 15,000?”
Cllr Savage said: “In terms of overall missed collections, you are talking about the missed roads.
“Those missed roads that come out, an awful lot of the time they are collected the following day.
“They are subsequently collected and mopped up.
“It is not a missed collection, it is a late collection, so it is different.
“It is semantics I know and it is not great if your bin wasn’t collected on a Wednesday and it gets collected on a Thursday in any case, but I can ask officers for the detail on it.”
Cllr Savage said he believed that the same roads were missed repeatedly, which he said could be due to their location on the collection route and issues with the reliability of the vehicle fleet.
He added: “Every time anybody contacts us and my team regarding missed bin collections and we are able to redirect them through to make sure that they are subsequently collected, we always offer them an apology.
“It is awful if your bin doesn’t get collected.
“It is a miserable thing to happen to you, so I do apologise, we do apologise.
“We are in the situation and it is not great.”