Some bins in Sussex village left unemptied for a month
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The issue happened in Stone Cross off the back of collection strikes in the area.
A Wealden District Conservative Group spokesperson said: “In that time refuse piled up creating a health hazard.
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Hide Ad“Householders in Stone Cross who were due a bin collection by Wealden suffered with overflowing bins while neighbours just yards away received a regular service because they come under Eastbourne Borough’s control.”
Conservative councillor Daniel Upton added: “Seagulls had a field day and left a trail of detritus down the street, and residents reported maggots in their rancid waste.
“Many residents took their rubbish to the tip but there are those who do not have transport or who suffer mobility issues. It’s just not good enough, residents pay to have a regular bin collection and yet were ignored for so long.”
The Conservative group said the recycling bins were emptied on Monday, June 19, but it took 19 days for landfill bins to be dealt with.
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Hide AdA Wealden District Council spokesperson said: “Members of the GMB union working for the council’s waste collection contractor, Biffa, took two days of strike action on the Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd June. The result of which was disruption to collection services in several areas due to have bins collected on those dates - including parts of Stone Cross.
"On Monday 5th June the union members involved ended their strike action and began working to rule instead. This enabled the vast majority of bin collections to take place on the scheduled days, however, whilst Biffa tried to get back and collect the missed bins from the earlier strike days, the work to rule hampered those efforts.
"Where they were unable to return and empty the bins extra waste was removed on the next scheduled collection enabling residents waste collections to return to normal.
“We are very sorry to any resident that had their bin collections disrupted by this industrial action and reassure them our waste contractor, Biffa, is working tirelessly to resolve this dispute.”