Garden waste collections to be suspended during Huntingdonshire bin crew strike

Garden waste collections will be suspended in Huntingdonshire while strike action takes place.

Industrial action by some UNISON members employed by Huntingdonshire District Council is due to start on Monday 21 August and to run until Friday 25 August.

The council has also been told there is prospective industrial action from Tuesday 29 August to Friday 1 September, and the authority is currently looking at how services will be impacted.

While a majority of services will run as normal in next week’s strike, the council said it had made a ‘difficult decision’ to suspend garden and bulky waste collections during the action.

Residents are asked not to put their garden waste bins out for collection during the period 21st to 25th August (inclusive). Instead, they should wait for their next collection day from 28 August onwards.

As bulky waste collection is a bookable service, during the period of strike action, residents can still make a booking for bulky waste collections from 28 August using the online form.

When garden waste services do resume, as usual waste crews will not be able to accept excess garden waste .

Council staff have received a 4% pay award for this financial year along with a further £1,000 one-off award to all contracted staff in March.

The council has a offered a further payment to be made in December which would result in all contracted staff receiving at least the Real Living Wage in 2023/24. This addressed one of UNISON’s core requests, but this proposal has not been accepted to date.

UNISON have said that the offer would still leave workers struggling to make ends meet, and urged the council to improve the offer.

Cllr Martin Hassall, Executive Councillor for Corporate and Shared Services at Huntingdonshire District Council, said: “We have made the commitment to rewarding staff fairly, and offering other benefits, whenever we are able to do so. Currently we are waiting to hear if our pay proposal is accepted, but if industrial action does go ahead, we have plans in place to minimise disruption to our frontline services.

“ While we believe the majority of our services will be unaffected, some services may have to be prioritised at the expense of others and we would ask for the public’s patience. If there are any additional changes to services, then we will communicate these via our website and social media.

“Currently, we expect industrial action to primarily impact our garden waste and bulky waste collections with all other services running normally. Our focus has to be on prioritising household waste as this is statutory service.”

“Again, we thank residents for their patience during this time and we continue to work to seek a solution that results in UNISON withdrawing their planned action. Any updates will be communicated to residents as soon as possible."

The council will have a dedicated FAQ page with a host of information, and this will be updated for the duration of the industrial action with all the information people need on any change or disruption to services.