Conditions of private roads across the Isle of Wight are beginning to cause health and safety concerns for waste collection staff, with households told to make urgent improvements.
The Isle of Wight Council and Amey have written to residents of 29 streets stating that to enable the continued collection of waste and recycling, repairs must be made to the road surface.
The Local Highway Authority are not responsible for maintaining a private or unadopted road. Responsibility for the maintenance cost of a private road rests with the residents that have access and frontage to the road.
Residents were initially told they had 28 days to make repairs or their waste collection would be stopped, however, it has now been decided that some leeway will be given as long as an improvement plan is presented.
A spokesperson from the Isle of Wight council has said:
“The council and Amey have not stopped or refused to collect waste from properties on private roads. There are over 250 private and unadopted roads on the Island that we collect waste and recycling from every week. We are still collecting it, and they have not been deemed unfit for collection.
“The council and Amey both have a legal obligation to ensure that our collection crews have a safe working environment, so we do ask people living on private roads to make sure the areas where waste is collected from outside their properties are reasonably level and safe, so our staff can move the bins across, and load into the vehicles. We’ve made a smaller list of 29 private roads where repairs to the roads are needed so that collection staff can work safely.
“We recently wrote to residents and asked them to fix their roads within 28 working days, and following feedback from residents and ward councillors we are now also willing to agree a plan of repairs. This means that residents have 28 working days to either repair the road or agree with us a plan of repairs.
Article continues below this advertisement “As a last resort, and if we are unable to agree a safe way to continue collecting waste in a certain road we could ask residents to use temporary collection points further down the road. We are still working with residents, ward members and local town and parish councillors to resolve these safety issues.
“In any of these circumstances, anybody with an Assisted Collection will be unaffected, and will continue to have their waste collected from the agreed point on their property. Anybody affected who wants to talk with us or have a meeting to look at the site has been given contact details so we can arrange a meeting or site visit.”
To speak to the council about your private road, phone: 01983 823777 or email [email protected].
The good old days. Dust man would enter the garden sling bin over his shoulder, take it to the lorry, empty it and put it back in the garden. Now any excuse not to empty them.
That’s when there wasn’t plastic on everything, I was from a family with 7 in the house and had only 1 bin that was collected weekly
We used to burn much on a coal fire to light it all the old paper and cardboard, even spud peeling to ‘keep the fire in’ overnight.
Now made to feel terrible if you dare light a fire.
Such is the brainwashing of the meek over the years
Next we will be emptying our bins and still paying council charges
And will Amey be giving 28 days notice to Island Roads, to repair the myriad of defects on adopted road? No, thought not.
That’s fine – withhold part of council tax!
The dustmen these days drop rubbish everywhere and never pick it up and in some cases broken bottles in the road.The streets are full of rubbish around cowes.Its like the town has become a giant bin.You might as well drop you rubbish on the pavement now no one will notice as it will blend in with the rest of the crap.Plesse don’t do that!and then they leave black bags with stickers on that just stay there for foxs to rip open letting rubbish and dog poo and kitty litter go into our streets.Thank you Amey and the isle of wight council for turning our beautiful island into a giant bin.
Like Wootton High Street this morning, left rubbish on the road. How about IWC and Amey having a word with the crew?
I hope these people who live on private roads get a council tax reduction for not having there rubbish collected.
And they stop on pavements so your are forced to walk in the road to get past there truck,putting your health and safety at risk.ps not good when you see a mum with her child in a pushchair having to do this,or some driving a mobility scooter.
No tip from me this year. Workshy
It’s about time the council got some road sweepers out to clear the dustmens mess up…..sort it out council!!!!
Suggest the council attends to a lot of their roads before they complain about private roads.
Big question is, why are so many roads unadopted or private? If private then surely it’s up to the land owner to arrange a bin store near the public highway. As for unadopted, they need adopting unless there is an overwhelmingly important reason not to.
An unpleasant job, yet if a small car can travel down these roads then so can a huge dust cart. GET ON with what you are paid, and paid well to do.
Exactly.
Why all of a sudden is it an issue – some of these roads have been like it for years – to times when the vehicles weren’t as good as they are now.
I have seen bins being emptied in various places and watched as the operators have dropped stuff or it’s blown away – do they sort it.. do they hell.
They do get paid well for this job and it’s a shame half of them have have faces like smacked backsides.