Local council drive to resolve issues around bin collections

FERMANAGH and Omagh District Council (FODC) says it is recruiting staff to resolve the ongoing issues regarding local bin collections and temporary closures of several recycling centres in the area.

Despite the council’s decision to increase domestic rates by more than five-per-cent this year, scheduled bin collections have been frequently missed and many recycling centres have been closed at short notice across the district.

Earlier this month, our sister paper, the Tyrone Herald, reported the council was taking up to six weeks to collect some area’s brown bins. Since then, this has increased to nine weeks.

To make matters worse, the local authority announced on social media that it would temporarily close recycling centres in Dromore and Fintona on various days throughout this week.

Independent councillor, Emmet McAleer, whose own brown bin has not been collected for five weeks, said these current issues were ‘unacceptable’ to local residents.

Cllr McAleer said, “This current state of affairs is not good enough. People are paying more in rates, and they expect, at least, the minimum of basic services, like bin collections to go ahead. This has been an issue not only in my own area, but across the entire district.

“It seems as though the list of places the council puts up on social media saying their bins will not be collected grows every week.

“It has been five weeks since my own brown food waste bin has been collected, and I have been contacted by several angry residents about this issue.”

In response, an FODC spokesperson said that the council is currently ‘progressing a number of recruitment processes’ to alleviate the issue regarding waste management.

The spokesperson said, “The council has continued to experience some service disruption to planned refuse collection and reduced opening hours in a number of household recycling centres across the district.

“We are progressing a number of recruitment processes for permanent, casual and seasonal positions across a range of service areas including waste and recycling, and it is hoped that these will be concluded over the coming weeks.

“Council recognises the impact this has on residents, and would like to thank them for their cooperation and continued support for our staff.”