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Residents are advised to continue presenting their grey household waste bins only ahead of further industrial action planned for later this month.

From Tuesday 13 February to Friday 16^th February, the Council will be collecting GREY bins only with residents asked to present their bin EVERY DAY.

This is because operatives are continuing to take action on non-strike days which is contributing to some bins not being collected on residents' scheduled collection days - or at all, due to crews not completing their rounds within the week.

The GMB and Unite unions in the Council's waste disposal services team plan to undertake a fifth wave of industrial action from Tuesday 20 February to Friday 23 February inclusive. If this strike goes ahead, no bins will be collected during this period.

However, the Council remains fully committed and is working hard to resolve matters by continuing to meet with unions and the workforce to try to bring an end to the dispute and avoid further industrial action taking place.

A Council spokesperson said: "We know that this is an extremely challenging time for everyone. But please bear with us. We are doing everything we can to minimise the impact of the strikes and would urge people to support each other.

"We continue to prioritise the collection of grey household waste bins at this time due to the greater public health risk this presents and to prevent further build-up of general waste ahead of the period of industrial action planned the following week when no bins will be collected at all."

To help minimise the impact of the action, the Council temporarily increased the opening hours (8am to 7pm) and the weekly number of slots available (by an extra 2,350 per week) at the Recycling Village on Middlefields Industrial Estate to help support people to dispose of their excess waste.

There are hundreds of booking slots currently available daily.

The number of visits per month for households with cars has also doubled from four to eight, while disruption continues.

Anyone taking recyclable materials to the Recycling Village is reminded that these need to be separated into cardboard, glass and plastics.

Residents with waste related queries are encouraged to visit the Council's website at in the first instance where they will find further information including a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).