Continued disruption to waste services

News from TMBC:

Since the current heatwave was forecast, we have been liaising with Urbaser regarding the potential impact on waste collections & street cleaning services.

Despite the challenging conditions yesterday, all crews managed to complete Monday’s scheduled collections, and all were deployed first thing this morning. However, as temperatures have increased throughout this morning, Urbaser have – quite rightly – made the decision to call the crews (including street cleaning staff) back in as of 1pm today. Some crews were very close to finishing and have been allowed to stay out so long as they stop work by 2pm at the latest.

We have instructed Urbaser to not only produce a catch up plan as a matter of urgency, but also to ensure that any staff who finish early today can be utilised on the catch up work including Saturday working as required. We should have that plan in time for the scheduled daily Operations Team briefing later this afternoon and can then provide further detail on our website, once the plan has been discussed & agreed. We have updated the website - https://www.tmbc.gov.uk/bins-waste/check-waste-collection-updates/1 and the Media team have scheduled some messages to go out via our social media accounts. The website will continue to be updated throughout the week, so if you are able to, please share the link on your own social media accounts and/or local Facebook groups, etc.