Rubbish still piling up on streets, Brummies say

Residents in some parts of Birmingham have said there are still piles of rubbish on their streets, with the city's bin strike in its sixth month and no sign yet of a deal.

Bin workers from the Unite union, who began an all-out strike on 11 March, after a series of one-day walkouts in January, are in a stand-off with the Labour-run city council over proposed changes to roles and pay.

Basmin Khan, who lives on Kenelm Rd in Small Heath, said things had improved since the strike's early weeks but there was "still a lot of rubbish around" and she felt the council was not giving residents detailed updates on the deal negotiations.

Birmingham City Council has been contacted for a response.

In a video posted on X on Monday, council leader John Cotton said the authority was working to "clear the backlog of waste" and it had "put a new deal on the table" to end the strikes.

A Unite spokesperson said the latest deal had been presented two weeks ago, with the union saying at that time the proposal had been "watered down" from a "ballpark offer" made at conciliation talks.

Residents' anger over the strikes disrupted a council meeting on Tuesday, with one man escorted from the public gallery after shouting questions at Cotton.

"The mountain of rubbish was removed but it has accumulated again," Gerry Moynihan, who lives on Colonial Rd in Bordesley Green, told BBC Radio WM.

Mr Moynihan said the current pile at the end of his road was due to a combination of fly-tipping, people dumping their recycling in black bags, and some household waste that had not been collected.

The council is collecting household waste, partly by using agency workers, but recycling is not being collected during the industrial action.

Mr Moynihan added that, once a few people put bin bags down on a street corner, it soon became a hotspot for others to do the same.

"We get people who drive [past] with cars, see the pile, think it's acceptable, stop their cars and dump their bags," he said.

Mr Moynihan said there were piles of rubbish on several roads in Bordesley Green, including Cherrywood Road, Imperial Road, and Grove Cottage Road.

Ms Khan in Small Heath said she still often saw bin bags on her street corner, adding that there had also recently been fly-tipping of larger items including a sofa.

"This is a walkway for children to get to school," she said, adding that she had reported the fly-tipping via the Fix My Street website, which sends reports on to councils, but it had not yet been cleared after three weeks.

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