Rats seen in Calderdale causing health fears as waste and recycling goes uncollected

Todmorden Town Councillor Matt Doyle (Lib Dem, Walsden) accused Calderdale Council of failing to collect waste and recycling on the scheduled days or in some cases not at all.

“I am inundated with complaints from all parts of Todmorden.

“Here we have local people carefully putting their waste and recycling items out on the required days and no-one coming to collect it.

“It is just not good enough.

“These issues have been ongoing since well before Christmas.

“What makes this more disturbing is some streets within Walsden are now reporting sightings of rats to me due to the build-up of waste,” he said.

Another Todmorden resident Claire Campbell, also expressed concern about the presence of rats related to similar issues and said issues go back before Christmas.

Soyland resident Richard Connell has also raised similar complaints.

Coun Jenny Lynn (Lab, Park), Calderdale Council’s Cabinet member for Public Services and Communities, said the council was sorry there have been some delays.

“Unfortunately, it’s not possible to catch up on all collections immediately as the bad weather caused considerable disruption to our work.

“To keep further disruption to a minimum, crews need to start this week’s work to schedule, so please put your recycling out on your next scheduled collection day as it will not be possible to collect it before then.

“If your bin wasn’t emptied, please leave it out and we will try to empty it even if it’s not due this week.

“If crews can’t get to everyone, some collections may not be completed until your next scheduled date, when extra refuse will be taken,” she said.

Coun Lynn said the council and operator Suez worked together to ensure the vast majority of the scheduled 7.3 million collections were completed in 2020 – in context of challenges with staff sickness, adapting to COVID-secure work practices, and a huge increase in waste and recycling due to the pandemic.

“However, in addition to significantly increased volumes due to Christmas and the current lockdown, the bad weather in recent weeks made some streets totally inaccessible and delayed crews’ departure from the depot,” she said.

In December 2020 crews collected an extra 410 tonnes of recycling, which is 30 per cent more than last year, said Coun Lynn.

“To deal with these challenges, extra staff were working over the Christmas period, including at weekends and on bank holidays, and additional staff and vehicles are currently helping to catch up with delayed collections,” she said.