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Allerdale council tax rebate for rubbish collection woes ruled out

BBC Wheeled rubbish bin filled with paper and cardBBC
Paper and card collections will continue but some have been late

Furious residents waiting up to two months to have rubbish collected will not have a council tax reduction.

Allerdale Borough Council in Cumbria suspended some recycling and garden waste collections after problems with new contractors who started in April.

Council leader Marion Fitzgerald said that, while council tax funded local services, it was not "contingent upon the regular delivery of services".

Residents should "not be advised to withhold payment", she warned.

The council's share of each householder's bill was only 10%, she said.

The proportion of an average bill allocated to waste collection for four weeks would be approximately 88p, she added.

Wheeled rubbish bin
This bin in Cockermouth was late for collection

After the suspension was announced some Twitter users, who were advised to take recycling to local waste centres, said their council tax should be refunded.

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Problems with the eight-year, £25m contract arose when it began in April, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The council, which had a Labour majority but has been Independent-led since May's elections, announced the suspension earlier this month.

It affects garden waste, glass, cans and plastic. Domestic waste, paper and card and trade collections will be unaffected.

Former Labour councillor Billy Miskelly said the service had gone from "expected glitches and a learning curve to absolute chaos since the middle of May".

Residents have said the new lorries were smaller and could not hold as much rubbish and crews did not know where they were going.