Liberal Democrat Councillors are warning that bin changes introduced this week could see a repeat of the collection chaos which hit parts of York last Christmas.

The new waste and recycling times, which started this week, see changes to collection days for over 10,000 households in York. The changes will affect areas including parts of Copmanthorpe, Haxby, Wigginton, Huntington, Dunnington and Fulford.

City of York Council has claimed that all residents should have received a letter informing them of the new collection arrangements. However, there is growing concern that some residents are unaware of the changes and reports from residents in Copmanthorpe that their bins were not emptied yesterday. Councillors were only given details of the new collection times on Friday and therefore have been unable to help publicise the changes.

Meanwhile, even areas where there were no changes to collection times have been hit by missed collections with residents in the Pulleyn Drive area off Tadcaster Road reporting that their green bins were not collected yesterday. It is believed that other areas have also been affected.

Councillor Ann Reid, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Environmental Services, commented:

“Last Christmas a failure to properly inform residents of changes to collection days led to chaos as rubbish overflowed and people simply did not know when their bins would be emptied.

“I fear that a repeat is now happening this week as we have already had reports that bins were left un-emptied in Copmanthorpe on Monday despite the new schedules saying they would be emptied. If the Council is now not following their own schedule it is a recipe for a repeat of the sort of chaos we saw over Christmas.

“Residents and councillors only seem to have been informed at the last minute about the changes and inevitably there will be some people who did not pick-up the information, particularly as they were not properly advertised on the council website.

“Meanwhile, the problems seem to be having a knock-on effect in areas where there were no schedule changes with residents in the Pulleyn Drive area not having their green bins emptied yesterday.

“Residents already have little faith in the Labour run Council to deliver basic services such as waste collection and I fear that mistrust will grow this week.”