Thank you for sharing the concerns some of your constituents have raised with you regarding the council’s response to the disruption following Storm Goretti and the severe weather we have experienced since the start of the year.

We know that our residents rely on our highways service to safely get around our borough, and on our waste collection service, and want to acknowledge the disruption we have experienced as a result of the severe weather since 2 January. This brought significant snowfall and hazardous conditions across much of Sandwell over a sustained period, and I want to apologise for the challenges and inconvenience this has caused.

Our approach to gritting our highways

Our highways team were working 24/7 throughout this period to help keep Sandwell moving. The gritting crew have been out 29 times, including a run on Christmas Day, and most recently in the evening on 13 January as temperatures fell again creating icy and frosty conditions.

Approximately 47% of Sandwell’s 890km network is routinely gritted. Gritting is time sensitive and works best on busier roads as the moving vehicles spread the grit to make the covering more even and melt the ice faster. It is ineffective to grit side streets as there are not enough vehicles using the roads to generate the movement needed for the grit to work effectively.

Sandwell also maintains 550 grit bins across the Borough which are placed on high-risk side roads. We have benchmarked our investment in grit bins, and this number compares well when set against peer and neighbouring authorities. Our crews did prioritise gritting the highways during this extended period, so I apologise for the occasions when we were not able to replace grit in all grit bins.

Whilst amber weather warnings are rare, we do plan for severe weather events such as this, and I would like to reassure you that the council will carry out a review to capture lessons. We will look at both the number and position of existing grit bins, whether additional grit bins should be provided and the resources allocated to grit bin replenishment as part of a review of the council’s planning for winter.

Bin collections

We understand that the disruption in waste collections will have inconvenienced many residents, especially in the post-Christmas period, when many residents will have more waste and recycling needing collection than normal.

Throughout this period we continued to maintain collections wherever it was safe to do so. Serco, our waste collection partner, dispatched full services every scheduled day except Friday 9 January when it was necessary to stand down services as a result of Storm Goretti. Up to 9 January more than 85% of scheduled bin collections were still completed; unfortunately the unavoidable cancellation of services last Friday created a further backlog of 23,500 collections.

Our crews were back out on Sunday 11 January – despite continuing icy conditions in many areas – with 19 crews collecting more than 8,400 residual bins. This week crews have completed scheduled collections and have also emptied a further 5,000 residual bins – effectively clearing the residual bin backlog, except those missed on 9 January. Work has already started on the missed residual bins from 9 January and will be completed this week – with crews working on Saturday to ensure completion.

The decision to not continue to clear the backlog of recycling collections was only taken after we had carefully considered all options. Waste collection resources are finite and there are strict limits on the number of hours trained drivers can work. Any additional catch-up work must be carried out using overtime or support crews. There are clear limits on how much can be recovered in a single day in addition to regular scheduled collections, which means one missed day can take several days to fully recover.

We were also restricted as the surrounding areas were facing similar challenging weather conditions, and so we couldn’t consider bringing in extra capacity from them. All bin crew need to be properly trained, which takes time, so we couldn’t bring in untrained staff to cover.

Therefore, the decision was made to prioritise residual waste. Sandwell households still present more than twice as much residual waste as recycling; in December households presented 4,500 tonnes of residual waste compared to 2,100 tonnes of recycling. Also recycling waste is inert and so can be left on the kerbside longer.

Whilst our intention is always to complete collections on the scheduled day, I hope this explains why it has not been possible to complete the backlog of recycling collections. We will be sharing updates via the council’s communication channels on how we intend to support residents who have built up a large amount of recycling over this period.

Best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Councillor Kerrie Carmichael

Leader of Sandwell Council