Missed bins improvement after 'fairly dire' months

Bin collection services in parts of Surrey have improved after some "fairly dire" recent months, a councillor said.

A shared waste collection service for Elmbridge, Mole Valley, Surrey Heath and Woking councils met its targets for the rate of missed collections in December, having missed the target for some areas in previous months.

But the councils' joint waste collection services committee heard on Thursday some areas fell short against other targets, including for repeated or unrectified targets.

Meeting chair councillor Ashley Tilling said the improvement was "great to see" after "it was fairly dire in September and October".

The service, run by contractor Amey, missed 73 of every 100,000 collections in Mole Valley in December, below the target rate of 80. In October, it missed 218 of every 100,000 collections in the district.

A total of 99 collections went unrectified in Mole Valley in December, better than the 518 that went unrectified in November but still above the target of zero.

The missed collection rate in Elmbridge also dropped to within the target range in December.

The Surrey Heath and Woking rates met the target throughout the three-month spell.

A total of 149 missed collections went unrectified in December across all four districts.

This was fewer than in November, when 603 missed collections were not rectified, but the target for this metric is zero.

An Amey spokesperson told the meeting that route optimisation would begin later this year to improve collection rates.

An improvement plan for Mole Valley has already improved the district's service, they added.

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