Refuse collectors will be taking waste next Monday (11th January) from Bolton Road car park, La Scala car park and the Grey Man car park in order to ease the pressure on householders after the collection vehicles were unable to do their normal rounds.

The three sites will only, however, be open from 8am until 12noon – which has been blasted by Councillor David Wilkinson, who represents Westhoughton South.

Cllr Wilkinson said: “This is simply not good enough. These are very limited times, when many residents will be at work. I will be pressing the Labour council to ensure that all surplus rubbish is picked up, and not just left uncollected like it has been on many streets.”

“Whilst I support the council’s emergency plan, it needs to be extended. I am also worried about less able residents such as the elderly or disabled. How are they to be expected to get rid of their waste?”

For full details on the emergency service see our original article, here.

It comes as bin lorries are unable to safely get around Westhoughton’s streets and so bin collections next Monday have been cancelled.

The announcement comes quickly after Westhoughton South ward councillor David Wilkinson asked the council to consider setting up emergency drop off points to help out his residents, many of whom are struggling to cope in the snow and have bigger and bigger piles of rubbish.

The council’s contingency plan means that residents who are mobile and able to transport their excess waste will be able to hand over their waste to a parked refuse collection vehicle which is crewed up with staff from the service.

Westhoughton’s emergency collection points next Monday will be:

- Bolton Road car park

- La Scala car park, Wingates

- Grey Man pub car park, Hindley Road

Click Zone 1 Household Waste Drop Off Points to view the full list of drop off points along with a map (supplied by Bolton Council).

Residents are advised to continue checking this website for further updates throughout the week. If you have any particular concerns you can contact our team by e-mailing us at focus@westhoughton-libdems.org.uk.

Updates will be posted to this website when we get them, and to our Twitter and Facebook. You can also discuss the bin collections on the discussion board in Facebook.

The council has issued the following statement: “Bolton Council services for today (6 January) and tomorrow (7 January) during the severe weather. Further heavy snow is expected to fall during the evening and overnight, according to the Met Office, which may affect council services.

Bin collections

Bin collections have been suspended in Bolton today due to the weather. Staff are in work and are gritting and clearing town centre footpaths.

Gritting

Council staff have been gritting and ploughing continually all night and all day today. Due to the volume and depth of snow, the council is concentrating on the main arterial and ring roads, in order to concentrate resources where they will have the most impact. This means that some of the minor roads on the approved gritting routes will not be receiving any attention in the short term. The roads being prioritised are:

All of the A6
Blackburn Rd
St Peters Way
Belmont Rd
Chorley Old Rd
Crompton Way
Scout Rd
Chorley New Rd
Bury Rd
Newbrook Rd
Wigan Rd
St Helens Rd
De Havilland Way
Snydle Way
Leigh Rd
Cricketers Way
Watergate Ln
Smethurst Ln
Bradford Rd
Manchester Rd A666
Church St, Little Lever
Market S,t Little Lever
Stopes Rd, Little Lever
Tonge Moor Road
Hall Lane, Little Lever

Staff will continue gritting around the clock on the main arterial and ring roads until it is safe to reduce the service to its optimal level and address the other roads on the gritting routes. Ploughs will be deployed where snow is two inches deep or greater. All available streetscene and waste management staff have also been out clearing footpaths in the town centres all day.

Schools

Schools which have already planned to close tomorrow can be found on the council website.

Social care

Social care support is being maintained for the most vulnerable people. Those who receive home care services are being contacted individually to receive support.

The ‘meals on wheels’ (community meals) service will be limited but emergency arrangements are in place if needed.

Day care services are expected to be closed for the rest of the week, depending upon the weather.

Social services helpdesk and advice line will be open.

The child protection service will be working.

The council is also asking for anybody who has a vulnerable neighbour to check on them and make sure they are alright and if there is anything they might need.

Libraries and museum

All libraries due to to be open today are open as normal. Highfield Library will be closed tomorrow. Bolton Museum will remain closed today.

Planning Committee meeting

Due to the weather we have had to cancel this weeks Planning Committee meeting tomorrow. It has been rearranged for Thursday 14 January.

LATEST:

This will mean that Westhoughton residents will have to wait until next week, on the 28th December, for a grey bin collection only. Recycling collections for beige and burgundy bins will commence on 4th January.

The council told us the following in an e-mail:

“Just to confirm that the majority of waste services have regrettably been suspended today 21^st December.

This was due to the heavy snowfall over the weekend and the cold conditions this morning (-5).

Before we suspended the service for the day an assessment took place around the collection zone ( mainly Westhoughton, Blackrod, Hunger Hill, Deane) and it was deemed to be unsafe to provide any collections.

The next grey residual collection will now take place on the 28^th December. If residents find it necessary we will take up-to 2 bags of excess waste on this day provided waste is presented property in sacks and tied up.

The next recycling collection (paper, glass, cans and plastic bottles) will take place on Monday  4^th January

Residents should be advised to bring in containers from the collection point and re-present them on the next scheduled pick up (as above)

An assessment shall take place in the morning on tomorrows collections.”

Has your bin been emptied?

Labour chiefs faced a grilling by angry residents and binmen as the bins fiasco rumbled on.

Top man Councillor Cliff Morris – Leader  of the Council – and Cllr Sufrana Bashir-Ismail, his Executive Member for Cleaner, Greener, Safer were sat on a panel organised by The Bolton News, where residents were invited along to ask the difficult questions.

It comes as residents across Westhoughton have not had their bins emptied over the past six weeks, and there is little sign of improvement. An internet poll on this website found that 71% of people said they were fed up with the currently problems.

It has been a deeply embarrassing few weeks for the Labour party in Bolton, and it all came to a head when the meeting was convened this week. Even the binmen spoke up – one even challenging the panel members to come and do his job for a week, promising to give a day’s wage to charity if they could complete the job successfully.

Cllr Bashir-Ismail was heckled noisily by the audience when she claimed the meeting was becoming ‘political’.

Westhoughton South ward councillor David Wilkinson said: “The most simple of question on everyone’s lips has become the most difficult question for Labour’s bosses. Everyone in Westhoughton is asking me, ‘When is my bin going to be emptied?’ and they just can’t give a straight answer.”

“We have been inundated with frustrated people who have been left without a bin collection for weeks. We are continuing to pressure the Labour-run council for answers, and above all, some action,” he added.

At the Council Meeting on 21st October Liberal Democrat Councillors strongly criticised the chaotic situation around bin collections and the many bins that are missed each week. We asked a number of critical questions of the Executive Member responsible for the service (Councillor Sulfrana Bashir-Ismail).

The questions we asked covered:

• Did the Executive Member stand by her decision to implement the changes to the bin collections, and would she give her full and public support?
• Did the Executive Member agree that the current failure to collect grey bins for several weeks at a time was a breach of Labour’s election promise?
• Could the Executive Member confirm whether there was now a policy not to issue green bins to terraced houses (even those with small gerdens back and front) and if so, was there any intention to remove green bins from those properties?
• What actions were being taken to ensure that refuse crews knew the location of bins where there should be an ‘assisted collection’ and to ensure that bins were returned to the correct position afetr emptying?
• What was the cost of additional crews, additional journeys and other measures to remedy mistakes of non collection of bins?
• Would there be any help for the ‘hard to reach’ areas of the Borough where there is no recycling available, and missed bins can cause additional problems?
• Has there been any change to the service standard where missed bins should be collected within 3 working days?

Apart from confirming that no policies had changed, we got little in the way of answers.

It was to be expected that Labour Councillors would not wish to raise questions publicly about probably the worst current problem in provision of services. What was surprising was that the Conservatives also were totally silent.

We later moved an amendment “That the Executive Member be urged to take a higher public profile in support of her policy and the officers that are carrying out that policy”. Most Conservatives supported that, but it was defeated because they were again split – several Conservatives voting with Labour and others abstaining.