Residents of new Flintshire housing estate left without bin collections for five months

Flintshire County Council has been slammed for not providing bin collections for a new Castle Green housing development in Buckley for a record five months.

People have been moving onto the Hawthorn Meadows site off Well Street since April but despite registering to pay council tax – and in some cases paying extra for garden waste collections – residents have not been issued with wheelie bins or recycling bags and have not had a single waste collection from the local authority.

Now frustrated residents have reached breaking point having had to spend the hottest summer on record without a reliable waste collection service.

Developer Castle Green – which has stepped up to help residents get rid of waste by hiring skips – has also criticised Flintshire Council.

It has revealed that the authority is the slowest to instate new bin collection but that this is the worst it had seen.

It also challenged the authority to be as efficient at setting up waste collection as it is collecting council tax from residents who are not getting the services they have paid for.

Nathan Long moved onto the development with his young family and said it had been a nightmare.

“We did all the things you are supposed to do,” he said.

“We were among the first to move in in April and we signed up to pay our council tax – because you don’t want to be in arrears on that – and also registered for our bins and for waste collection.

“But we have had nothing. We have chased and chased, I have written to local councillors and MP Mark Tami but nothing has changed.

“We accept we are living on a building site currently and that some services – like streetlighting – are not fully operational yet. But we are getting none of the services we pay for through our council tax including perhaps the most important one – bin collections.

“The council has offered no alternative, they were happy to just leave us living among our own waste.”

He said that the developer – Castle Green Homes – had been incredibly supportive.

“Castle Green could not have done more to help,” said Nathan. “They have been chasing Flintshire County Council on this too on our behalf but have been ignored.

“They have been paying for skips for us to throw our waste into and to dispose of it because it’s been so hot and we border a rural area so the prospect of attracting vermin due to rubbish hanging around is very real.

“I just don’t know how they can let us live like this. To add insult to injury, yesterday (Monday) I spotted a bin wagon pulling out of the junction opposite our development so it’s not like the council has to create a new collection route.”

Documents shown to the Local Democracy Reporting Service show that Flintshire People’s Voice Cllr Dan Rose has also taken up residents’ complaints.

In response to his enquiries Flintshire County Council said that Hawthorn Meadows had not been included on collection routes yet as the roads were unadopted and had not been subjected to health and safety reviews as yet.

While delays for new build sites are common, Castle Green says in other authority areas like Wrexham, Denbighshire and Conwy, the wait for residents is a couple of weeks.

It said Flintshire is typically longer – on the massive Airfields site in Deeside the authority took around a month to deliver bins and begin collections, but five months is unprecedented.

“The situation residents of our new homes in Buckley find themselves in is unprecedented in our experience,” said Castle Green Homes’ Partnerships Director Eoin O’Donnell.

“Usually, the local authority issues bins to residents of new homes soon after they register for council tax and their homes are then added to the collection route.

“The first residents moved into Hawthorn Meadows at the end of March and there are now 61 homes occupied. None of them have received bins or had their waste collected by Flintshire County Council.”

Mr O’Donnell said that the delay was proving expensive for Castle Green. While Flintshire Council has not been providing waste services the developer has – hiring skips for residents to use and paying for their disposal in order to ensure they can live in dignity in their new homes.

“Although the issue is between the residents as council taxpayers and the local authority, Castle Green has been removing their rubbish at our cost,” he said.

“We could not leave our residents in such a dreadful predicament in the hottest summer on record. We’ve made multiple attempts to contact the council via phone and email to resolve the situation to no avail.

“We do not encounter this problem in Wrexham, Denbighshire or Conwy, it is clearly a problem which is particular to Flintshire.

“Given that Flintshire can issue council tax demands in a swift and efficient manner, perhaps they might consider putting similar effort into providing a refuse collection service.”

Flintshire County Council was approached for comment.

By Alec Doyle – Local Democracy Reporter