Update From the Chief Executive RE waste & recycling collections

I recognise the frustration and inconvenience caused to residents who have experienced delays to refuse, food and recycling collections over the festive period. I would like to offer my sincere apologies to everyone affected and reassure residents that resolving these issues and restoring normal services remains our top priority.

A combination of factors has contributed to the disruption, including operational capacity pressures, vehicle breakdowns, the unusually high volume of waste following the Christmas period and adverse weather conditions.

Our current position is as follows:

• Additional crews are catching up in the areas that were impacted by last week’s weather (mainly Monday and Tuesday collections), where vehicles were unable to access some streets due to snow and ice.
• By Wednesday this week, all areas will be up-to-date, and all backlogs will have been cleared.
• By Friday this week, all regular collections for this current week will also have been completed.

We will carry out a full review of the issues that contributed to this operational disruption, so that we can clearly understand what went wrong and ensure appropriate lessons are learned for the future.

I fully recognise the frustration this has caused and the pressure it has placed on both residents and staff, and again, I would like to apologise to all those affected.

If you would like to submit a comment or complaint regarding any issues you’ve experienced as a result of missed collection that you feel you feed into our review, please visit the following page: https://www.merthyr.gov.uk/council/comments-complaints-and-compliments/complaints-procedure-comments-and-customer-feedback/

Thank you.