At the end of June, residents and local businesses began to notice bins were being taken away and weren’t being replaced
Cllr Patrick O’Donnell and Cllr Nadia Burrell have raised concerns with Lambeth Council over the missing bins (Image: Lambeth Labour )
A South London council has said bins will be returning to two major roads. The Lambeth Labour Group launched a campaign to bring back litter bins along Clapham High Street and Wandsworth Road after around a dozen were removed by the council.
At the end of June, residents and local businesses began to notice bins were being taken away and haven’t been replaced since.
Local Labour councillors, Cllr Patrick O’Donnell and Cllr Nadia Burrell, raised their concerns with Lambeth Council after spotting “near enough” a dozen which had gone missing.
A Lambeth Council spokesperson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “We apologise for the delay in installing the new bins in Clapham.
“The changes to litter bins form part of a planned borough-wide improvement programme that has been underway since April 2026, delivered through the council’s waste and street cleansing contract with Serco signed in 2021.
“We know how important keeping the borough clean is to our community and we will work with our contractors to ensure there are no delays like this in future.”
The spokesperson thanked local people for their patience, and said the number of bins will stay consistent, as will how often they are emptied although some may be moved based on local feedback.
Cllr O’Donnell and Cllr Burrell told the LDRS they have tried to contact the council multiple times, but claimed they either received a brief response on the matter or no response at all.
Cllr O’Donnell, who represents Clapham Town ward, said: “We haven’t got a clear steer, and I think that’s what upsets me the most because between Nadia and me, I think we’ve sent about six emails. So some of those are direct to people, such as officers in the council. Some of that is sending questions through members’ inquiries.
“And then we also wrote [last week] to the cabinet member. We haven’t heard back yet on a response. We’ve emailed so many times and either just had a very short response saying we replaced some but not all of them and then with the other five [we sent] they just weren’t answered, unfortunately.”
Taking matters into their own hands, the two councillors decided to launch a Lambeth Labour campaign and a petition which is calling on the council to reinstate all of the bins.
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Cllr Burrell, who represents Stockwell West and Larkhall ward, added: “Our hope is that we can keep demonstrating to the council the strength of public opinion that the bins need to return, and ideally we can get them back.”
On August 3, Cllr O’Donnell and Cllr Burrell uploaded an Instagram post documenting the disappearing bins, which has since attracted over 10,000 likes and hundreds of comments and reposts.
A lot of the bins which have been removed are located around train stations such as Clapham Common, Clapham High Street, Wandsworth Road and other high footfall areas.
Cllr Burrell said: “The footfall is so high throughout the whole day and especially at night as well.
“We have loads of visitors coming to Clapham and down to Wandsworth Road into Stockwell. Loads of people pass through so it makes no sense to not replace the bins.”
According to Cllr O’Donnell, one resident said there is only one bin between Clapham North Tube station and the library, which is around a five-minute walk.
Cllr O’Donnell said: “People might think, ‘why are you making a fuss about bins? There’s so many problems in the world’.
“But this is one of the most basic things that people expect their councils to do. If you go up some of the street and say, ‘what does your council do?’, bins is probably going to be the first thing they say. The slight irony is they can’t say bins because there aren’t any bins.”
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