OVERFLOWING bins stacked high with the remnants of Christmas turkey and Easter Sunday roast are set to be a thing of the past as Castle Point Council unveiled new collection plans.

Cancelled bin rounds during the festive season and Easter holidays have long been a bugbear for the borough’s residents, who have to wait up to a fortnight for their rubbish to be removed.

However, the council is now proposing to keep all bin rounds over holiday periods.

Previously, collections on Christmas Day and Boxing Day were cancelled. Under the new plans, rounds will be shuffled to accommodate those residents who missed out.

During the Easter break, bin men will now work on Good Fridays, and collections scheduled for Easter Monday will be shuffled rather than dropped.

The changes will cost the cash-strapped authority an extra £10,800, but Ray Howard, Castle Point councillor for waste, believes it is money well spent.

He added: “I think this is an excellent proposal and it will give people the reassurance their waste will be collected over the holiday period.

“I know there are a lot of elderly and vulnerable people who do worry if their collections are cancelled and hopefully this will help put their minds at ease.”

The proposals will be considered by the council’s cabinet at a meeting tomorrow night.

They have been unveiled days before a major and controversial change to the borough’s bin rounds, which begins on Monday, July 4.

This will see weekly black bag collections replaced with a weekly food and garden waste collection.

Black bags and pink recycling waste will be collected fortnightly.

Elizabeth Foster, 68, of Church Road, Thundersley, believes the holiday changes are an attempt to soften the blow.

She added: “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good idea.

“But, I wonder if they’re just doing this to make us feel better about the black binbags going.

“I think it will cause problems.

“You can’t throw away nappies with the food waste so they are going to be left out rotting for a fortnight.”