One million bin or recycling collections have been missed in Swindon since May last year with critics slamming the local council for "brought to its knees".
Tory councillors claim that been between May 18 and late November, under an old collection system, 572,399 homes had missed collections - a 12 per cent failure rate.
While a new structure - introduced on November 27 until February 15 - saw the failure rate surge to a 43 per cent, with 476,100 homes missing collections.
Tory councillors have calculated the immense number of missing collections based on a bin not collected on its allocated day and counting each extra day it remains uncollected as another separate missed collection.
One million bin or recycling collections have been missed since May last year as critics slam the service which has been 'brought to its knees'GB NewsThe Labour administration has disputed the allegations, saying the numbers include "double and triple counting" and that such an example is more accurately just one missed collection.
Tory MP for North Swindon, Justin Tomlinson told GB News: "We keep getting told either there's no problem or it's about to get better.
"We believe the communication was poor in the beginning. They left the launch too late - left it until the bad weather and obviously that compounded problems in the early days that they didn't pilot anything.
"So overnight we went from the old system to the new system. If they had actually done some pilots they would have realised they needed to change some of the routes, change the capacity, increase the mop up crews.
"They have no project manager so it's really difficult to get anybody to take accountability. So councillors are just simply having to repeatedly report missed collections."
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Tory councillors claim that been between May 18 and late November, under an old collection system, 572,399 homes had missed collections
Councillor Gary Sumner, leader of the opposition Conservative group, attacked the bin system and described it as a "shambles".
"It doesn't matter whether you look at the old system of rubbish collection in Swindon or the new system introduced, it has been a shambles all year," he told the Swindon Advertiser.
"The council is playing catch-up and chasing the problem instead of fixing it.
"The staff in the recycling service have been doing a fantastic job but have found themselves working under greater pressure due to timing of the rollout and lack of dedicated project support."
Between November 27 and February 15, Swindon saw a bin collection failure rate of 43 per cent
Councillor Gary Sumner, leader of the opposition Conservative group, attacked the bin system and described it as a 'shambles'
However, Labour Councillor Chris Watts said the issues with the collection system stem back further than June last year when Labour took over the council.
He told GB News: "It appears that a select few Conservative councillors want to focus on the effects but are unsurprisingly reticent to discuss the cause of the issues that happened under their watch.
"By not adequately resourcing the project stage in 2022, the result was incorrect critical data, flawed assumptions and a lack of adequate back-office support systems.
"The problems that we are left with to resolve are systemic and deep-rooted, but we will continue to work hard to rebuild the service."
