Though you wouldn’t believe it judging by recent weather we are now in June, however it does seem a strange time to be talking about severe winter weather, but that is exactly what we talked about at this weeks Sustainable Communities Scrutiny meeting.

Because of the disruption caused by the severe weather last year, not least the suspension of bin collections it was decided that the Council in conjunction with the Councils household waste contractor Biffa carry out a lessons learned exercise in order to try and improve the service for future years.

As part of this exercise a report was presented to the Sustainable Communities Scrutiny Committee, which I am now a member of.

In that report there was a recommendation that a trial be conducted by fitting a number of refuse vehicles with snow tyres and also that the crews be issued with addition personal protection equipment in the form of over shoe crampons. Snow chains where discounted due to the fact that they can’t be used on roads not covered in snow and it would be impractical to fit and remove them to Biffa’s large fleet on an as required basis.

Hopefully should we see a repeat of last years severe weather then with the measures taken a better level of service will result, however as always the health and safety of the general public as well as Biffa staff will take priority.

For further information the full report can be downloaded by clicking here