Waste service apology

Published Tuesday 28 May, 2024
Last updated on Thursday 30 May, 2024

The leader of the council and the chair of the environment and climate change committee have written an open letter to residents, apologising for the disruption to recycling and waste collection services.

Dear Resident,

We are writing to you to apologise for the ongoing issues you have been experiencing with the waste collections in Swale.

Swale Borough Council started a new service contract on the 25 March with Suez Recycling and Recovery UK who are now responsible for the waste and recycling collections across the Borough. Many of you will know Biffa who were our previous contractors and have asked why we stopped using them. The previous contract had expired and we were required to re-tender for a contractor to run this service.

We know that the start of this contract has led to many customers experiencing problems with collections and for this we would like to sincerely apologise.

As part of the new contract, new collection routes and vehicles were introduced. This will lead to a more resilient service but will need time before this can be achieved. The council were aware and were told to expect some disruption as this is usual with a new waste service, but the level of inconvenience to residents is greater than we or Suez expected.

Councillors and officers have been working hard to ensure the service is improving, we are meeting with Suez daily to update them with the problems residents are experiencing and discussing their recovery plan with them. We have required Suez to provide additional vehicles and staff at their own cost to undertake catch up rounds while the new routes bed in. We have also redeployed our own staff to provide support in the customer contact centre and to have additional inspectors monitoring the work of Suez.

We are very sorry that despite these measures some residents are still not receiving the level of service we feel is acceptable. We would like to thank you for your patience during what is a very frustrating time.

The Chief Executive and the leader of the council have met with the Chief Executive of Suez to advise them of the impact the current performance is having on residents. The Chief Executive has requested a further meeting in the coming two weeks.

The council’s customer service centre phone lines remain busy and I know it can be frustrating when the lines are engaged. Please be assured we have increased the resource in the contact centre, and we are trying to answer as many queries as possible.

We know some residents have been frustrated that they have not received responses to emails. Our focus has been passing the details to Suez to try and rectify the issues. Please be assured the council is actioning every email we receive, even if we are unable to respond.

We would like to end by confirming that the improvement in the waste service remains this council's top priority.

Please accept our sincere apologies. I assure you we are working hard to improve the services.

Cllr Tim Gibson, Leader of Swale Borough Council.
Cllr Rich Lehmann, Chair of Environment and Climate Change Committee.