COUNCIL plans to introduce four-weekly refuse collection against the wishes of residents came under fire at a Senedd debate last week. 

Clwyd West AM Darren Millar highlighted resident’s concerns regarding the new refuse collection scheme in Conwy and urged the Welsh Government to take action to ensure local authorities work with residents.

Mr Miller who has been leading a campaign against the bin collections cuts and coordinated a petition calling for the four-weekly collections to be ditched and requested that residual waste be emptied no less than once a fortnight.

He said: “It’s really important to take the public with you on the recycling journey.

“We’ve been successful as a nation in doing that to date, but when you reduce waste collection services to a four-weekly basis, which is the situation in Conwy at the moment, you really do begin to lose people’s goodwill, and that is precisely what is happening in the County Borough at present.

“We’ve got 10,000 households there who are on a four-weekly general refuse collection scheme.”

Mr Miller also mentioned that he has seen an increase in fly-tipping and rodent sighting reports to his office and said it is putting the health of Conwy residents at risk.

“While I have no doubt that some households do need to do more to recycle and dispose of their waste responsibly, there are public health risks as well related to the new regime.”

He added: “It cannot be right that pet waste, for example, sits in people’s bins for four weeks at a time, because that can cause public health risks to householders and the council workers who then go on to collect that waste,” he added.