Conwy: “Residents want two-weekly bin collections”

Speaking at Monday’s finance and resources overview and scrutiny committee, backbencher Cllr David Carr told council leader Cllr Charlie McCoubrey that residents were fed up of not having their bins and recycling collected.

According to Cllr Carr, residents want to see refuse collected more often and labelled four-weekly collections, which were introduced in Conwy in September 2018, as “an experiment”.

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Cllr Carr also claimed the council was making excuses over not cutting “non-essential services”.

Much of his criticism went unheard by those not in the building, due to the microphones at the new Coed Pella chamber not working – despite £700K of investment in the new HQ.

The council meeting was the first to take place at Coed Pella after Conwy moved its HQ and chamber from Bodlondeb.

Cllr Carr, though, was criticised by the council’s leader, who clamed the Old Colwyn councillor continually levelled criticism at the council without providing solutions.

Cllr Carr said: “We do need to look at the non-essential spending in this council, and I’ve mentioned this so many times before.”

He added: “We are cutting services in ERF (environment department) when people are having problems with refuse collections, and I can say to Charlie (leader Cllr Charlie McCoubrey) in Old Colwyn that the four-weekly collections are not working.

“This is great that we have the recycling rates that we get, but the downside is that there is rubbish.

“There are piles of rubbish. I’ve had problems where I live with piles and piles of rubbish, fly-tipping, and that’s what’s happening.

“A council in Bristol is run by the greens (Green Party). They have specifically looked at four-weekly collections and didn’t go for that. They said it wasn’t right.

“It wasn’t appropriate, so even the green council is saying that.

“These are the front line services the public notice most, the bins, the nappy collections, the blue bin collections, the cardboard collections.

“We’ve had complaints in Old Colwyn for months now that the cardboard has not been taken away.”

Cllr Carr added: “We need to remember that our main aim is to deliver services.

“That is what we are here for, and that is what we should be doing.”

Budget

In response, the council’s leader said: “You’ve mentioned the problem many times, David (Cllr Carr), but you’ve never identified the money you would save by driving forward these projects.

“Our budget is far more complicated than that.

“If you want to make specific suggestions about areas that you think we should cut and what money that would actually save us, that would be helpful.

“We’ve not made reductions to the actual refuse collection team.

“We’ve got a very positive report coming on our refuse collection moving forward.

“If you compare Bristol Council, their recycling rates are ridiculous, below 40% compared to ours at 70%.

“I take your point that it is not perfect, but I don’t think our young people, our residents, want to see waste going in the landfill, and I think we should be really proud of what is the right thing to do, and we’ve made difficult decisions in the past years to push on with that.

“It has been shown to be correct, and to go back to what they are doing in Bristol would be clearly ridiculous.”

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He added: “I was in Salford a week ago. There is absolutely rubbish and litter and filth everywhere, so I don’t accept that at all.

“But if you want to have specific suggestions, rather than just little notional stuff, then that would be helpful; otherwise, it is just complaining essentially without actually looking for a solution.”

Cllr Carr said: “I think the answer is what every other local authority in this country is doing is having two-weekly collections, two-weekly collections for refuse, two-weekly collections for recycling.

“It works in all the other counties, doesn’t it?

“We went out on a limb with this four-weekly project, didn’t we?

“It’s an experiment that is not working. I can only say what the residents are telling me. They don’t like this experiment.”

Waste strategy

Former cabinet member for the environment, Cllr Mike Priestley backed the leader.

“I have to totally disagree with Cllr Carr,” he said.

“Only a week or so ago the waste strategy came through the economy and place committee.

“We in Conwy have hit our recycling rates at 70.48%, which is absolutely amazing, and there is still waste in the bins, I’m being told, and what we need to do is get that waste out of the bins.”

Cllr Priestley then suggested the council should instead look to educate residents or even take enforcement action if that failed.

The debate took place when discussing a report on Conwy’s resilience action plan update.

In September 2024, cabinet approved its resilience action plan, which set out a range of activity in support of work to secure financial resilience.

The report updated councillors on progress and was backed before the papers go to cabinet for further debate.