Strike leaves 8,000 bins full (From Worcester News)

Strike leaves 8,000 bins full

7:10am Friday 18th July 2008 in

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AN ANGRY dad is refusing to pay his council tax after binmen went on strike and rubbish collections were cancelled.

Jon Barras is furious that his family’s recycling rubbish was not collected from his Worcester home yesterday.

About 8,000 out of 40,000 city homes (20 per cent) did not get their fortnightly bin collection yesterday and Wednesday after several bin lorry drivers joined the Unison strike over pay.

Mr Barras, aged 42, of Bishop’s Avenue, off Merriman’s Hill Road, Worcester, himself a lorry driver, has now cancelled his £122 council tax direct debit for July which he says is roughly the same cost of paying to have the waste removed privately.

He will pay Worcester City Council only if it agrees to shift the rubbish within the next three days after staff at the customer service centre told him he would now have to wait another fortnight to have it taken away.

Father-of-two Mr Barras also said he had asked the city council for bags to put recycling rubbish in as the green wheelie bin is now already full.

Mr Barras said: “I have been warned I could be done for non-payment of council tax but I have not had a pay rise in four years and I pay my council tax for rubbish to be removed. If they’re not going to remove it, they should pay for me to do it.

“I’m fuming about this. The hard-working people are suffering at the moment but they still expect me to pay my council tax at the end of the month.”

Mr Barras is also concerned that the recycling rubbish will become a fire risk if it is not collected, particularly as he has two children, aged 12 and 19 months.

Mr Barras also said a council worker mistakenly gave him the telephone number of Coun Bob Peachey, who is no longer a Worcester city councillor.

Mike Harrison, head of cleaner and greener at Worcester City Council, said the rubbish had not been collected on certain routes but the strike meant there were three drivers not in work on Wednesday and two on Thursday.

So far the city council has received 100 requests for green bags as wheelie bins fill up.

The areas affected included Rainbow Hill, Astwood Road, Lansdowne Road, Arboretum, Sansome Walk, Green Lane and Merriman’s Hill Road.

Collections were not cancelled by Wychavon District Council or Malvern Hills District Council.

But Adrian Gregson, county branch secretary for UNISON, defended the strike and estimated that as many as 60 per cent of the 5,000 members countywide refused to cross the picket line yesterday.

He also said that he believed more people had stayed off work yesterday than on Wednesday as they realised “the error of their ways” after coming into work on the first day of the strike.

He added: “Our main concern is that the employers take a rational view and come back with another offer.”