Allerdale bin strike: Residents face overflowing bins and rats

A family with 10-week-old twins have described how hard it has been living with overflowing bins during a two-month refuse worker strike.

Workers from Cumberland Council's Allerdale Waste Services (AWS) are on "all-out strike" as part of a pay dispute.

More than 30,000 households in the area have missed weekly bin collections.

Unite and GMB unions said they wanted "fair" pay. AWS said its proposals had "unfortunately been rejected".

Jiri Buchtela, who lives near Cockermouth, said recycling bins had not been collected in two months and general collections had also been severely disrupted.

With two babies in the house, he added the general waste bin took "about two days" to fill up with used nappies.

Mr Buchtela said he was concerned about "the danger" of rats and had resorted to taking rubbish out with him to put in public bins.

In some areas, including Setmurthy Woods, near Cockermouth, rubbish bags have been seen dumped.

Residents whose regular rubbish collections are missed have to wait another week to have the waste taken away.

Some have been repeatedly missed and no recycling or garden waste has been collected since the dispute began.

Fiona Ashford, who lives in Blennerhasset, said: "Obviously when you're in a rural area and people have got livestock there's rats.

"We have seen dead rats lying around. The rats are going to be a problem."

Workington Conservative MP Mark Jenkinson said some constituents had not had black bin collections for most of the strike.

"Because it isn't the regular guys that are doing the collecting, it's agency workers, they obviously don't know the routes and bins are going missing, sometimes for weeks on end," he said.

AWS said it "sincerely apologised" for the disruption caused by the industrial action.

"We have already provided our staff with a 10.1% pay increase from April and have tabled additional improvements to terms and conditions that would effectively result in an 11.7% pay award," a spokesperson said.

"These proposals have unfortunately been rejected by the unions."

The Unite and GMB unions said workers took home between £10.90 and £11.89 per hour and wanted "a fair pay offer" to be made.

They said workers in Carlisle and Copeland came under a national agreement and had better holiday entitlement and sick pay than workers in Allerdale.

The council has said AWS employees received a 10.1% pay rise and it could not afford what the union wanted.

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