Southend Council to consider fortnightly black bin collections

Southend Council is set to meet next week to consider the impact and suitability of ditching weekly rubbish sack collections, and introducing black wheelie bins across the borough.

Despite Southend’s Conservative group promising to maintain weekly collections ahead of the last election, plans are now being considered to move to fortnightly collections to tackle the council’s financial black hole.

Despite concerns being raised, independent councillor Ron Woodley insisted it wouldn’t be a “one size fits all” policy and that sacks could remain for some residents.

Shoebury resident, Peter Lovett, said: “The business with refuse has been going on for a year when the last administration was talking about fortnightly collections.

“It is surprising they want to change the bin collection, but they do have to save money and at least they are trying it, but the most affected areas will be people in flats and care homes.

“A lot of Essex homes have communal bins downstairs that are now being cleared weekly, these are things we must start looking at.”

Mr Woodley admitted that it would not be suitable for all residents in Southend to have black bins.

He added: “People who have nowhere to store waste will have something different.

“The weekly sack collections could continue, whether those could be weekly or bi-weekly is another thing because if you can’t store anything in the sacks, where would you keep it?

“I only need to put one black sack away a fortnight.”

The meeting next Friday will also discuss the amount of street cleaning due damaged sacks resulting in rubbish being spread across the street.

Tory council leader Tony Cox said: “We must have a whole suite of polices on what properties can take wheelie bins, so this meeting is to be about the policy for those properties.

“We are going to be looking at those situations that would need communal bins and the scrutiny will be on what properties can take wheelie bins.”