Torbay bin collection tardiness continues

Council says it inherited problems in 2019

Little progress has been made in ending Torbay’s bin collection saga, as the council says its staff have been “decimated” by absences due to covid.

SWISCo, the council’s waste collection company, is thought to be around 20 collections behind, a similar number to where it was on Monday last week [14 March]. Nineteen collections are usually made every day. 

On that date, nine members of staff at SWISCo were off ill and infections are continuing to cause waste to pile up.

The council has been asked for updated figures but has yet to respond.

Speaking on Monday this week [21 March] Kevin Mowat, the council’s director of place, said: “We’ve been decimated with this second surge of covid. 

“We’re holding our own at the moment. We’re not making any ground and probably won’t make any ground this week.

“Hopefully, we’ll start to make some ground and [begin] catching up on those numbers next week as the drivers start to return from their covid isolation.”

The leader of the council, Steve Darling (Lib Dems, Barton with Watcombe), defended SWISCo’s efforts, saying: “I understand it’s not something you can do overnight, so we continue to face challenges.”

Patience is thin among some residents. Last month a man who was furious that his bins had not been collected for three weeks dumped his rubbish at the entrance to Torquay’s town hall.

It is not the first time this year SWISCo has been struggling to keep up.

The council was more than 38 collections behind at some points in January because of what they claimed was an “unprecedented situation” with high covid cases. 

Two months on, the council doesn’t yet have the staff in place to manage similarly high case rates. It says it is doing all it can to fix the problem.

Cllr Darling said: “What we are looking at doing is trying to build resilience into the system so that we do actually have some spare capacity.”

He says the current administration inherited a service with low staff numbers, giving little leeway for staff absences, which have become widespread due to covid.

The Liberal Democrat/Independent alliance that controls Torbay Council took control three years ago,

Now six new HGV drivers have been hired to help make up for the staff shortage, but they haven’t started work yet. It’s hoped they will be in place by the end of the month, what’s left of it, or early in April. 

The council says at least another seven drivers are needed: “especially as covid-19 is causing more sickness than normal again.” 

Covid rates in Torbay have been soaring recently, with more than 1 in 100 people in the area currently infected.

In the week to Wednesday 18 March, 1,479 infections were recorded in Torbay, 40 per cent (425) more than in the previous seven days. The Bay’s infection rate of 1,479 per 100,000 is almost 75 per cent higher than the national average of 851.