Call for immediate action following waste collection issues UPDATED

[Cookham Webmaster]

The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead is bitterly disappointed in the waste and recycling collections service provided by Serco and is calling for immediate action to be taken.

Senior council officers held talks with Serco’s senior management this week to make it clear that the level of service has been unacceptable, and a drastic improvement is required immediately.

Councillor David Coppinger, lead member for waste, planning and Maidenhead, said: “We are incredibly disappointed in the level of service that has been provided since the return of weekly collections and insist that urgent plans are put in place to complete the rounds more efficiently, as the delays are unacceptable for our residents.

“We have agreed with Serco that additional vehicles and crew will be in operation this week to address the temporary backlog. Those roads that have been missed will be collected as follows:
 
Bins not collected on Monday 7 September will be collected on Monday 14 September. Reasonable levels of excess waste at the side of bins will be accepted if necessary

Bins not collected between Tuesday 8 and Friday 11 September will be collected on either Saturday 12 or Sunday 13 September
Households that have experienced multiple missed collections will have their waste collected by the end of this week so please leave your bins out in readiness
Individual missed bins need to be reported via the council website and will be collected as soon as possible: https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/home/environment-and-waste/recycling-and-rubbish/report-missed-bin.
 
“We’re committed to providing an effective weekly collection service to our residents and will work with Serco to review the current routes and make adjustments so that these issues do not continue in the future but we do need them to make the changes to their business in order for this to be resolved.

“I know that the crews on the ground are working as hard as they can and with many of them living in the borough, they want to make sure they provide a good service. I am urging their management team to look into the arrangements to make sure they provide the crews what they need to collect our residents’ bins.

“I would like to offer our apologies to residents for any disruption they may have experienced, but reassure them that we are working hard to improve the service. I’d also like to thank our call centre staff who have been supporting residents throughout the disruption for their Herculean effort.”

If you experience a missed collection, please continue to report this to us online at: https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/home/environment-and-waste/recycling-and-rubbish/report-missed-bin as it will help us to help Serco improve the service.

[aj]

SERCO - Slow Erratic Rubbish Collection Operation

[Roger]

This appeared in the FT recently, Serco tops UK outsourcers for Covid-19 contracts. They must have incredibly good salesmen.

[Watchman]

Apologies, no matter how sincere, do not get bins emptied nor do they keep vermin away from the piles of rubbish
amassed as a consequence.

What I cannot understand is why Serco were allowed to alter the rounds and collection dates from the original
tried and tested system employed by the previous incumbents of refuse collection.

Why were they allowed to dissect, reorganise and basically cock-up the existing system -
which brings up the old adage - If it ain't broke, why the hell try fixing it??

Will we, as residents who suffer this ridiculous mess-up with bin collection be offered a rebate on next year's community charge?
Don't hold your breath folks.

[aj]

We're dealing with a company that was found guilty of defrauding the Ministry of Justice and was fined something in the region of £20 million not too long ago. So I wouldn't go holding my breath (except around the uncollected bins of course) that they will be much vexed by RBWM being miffed with them.