Good news for Basingstoke and Deane residents as Serco to restart fortnightly garden waste collection service

Garden waste collections in Basingstoke and Deane will resume from next week as staffing levels have stabilised.

Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council has announced the good news that the fortnightly garden waste collection service, which costs £60 a year, is to restart from Monday, January 24.

It was suspended on January 10 in order to enable staff to prioritise the core waste and recycling services, where there was a backlog of collections from the Christmas and new year period.

The council has kept the service under constant review since it was suspended and Serco has now confirmed that it is in a position to restart collections, although staffing will continue to be reviewed.

The council has said that crews will collect real Christmas trees alongside garden waste when the service resumes. There is no time limit on this.

Christmas trees can also be taken to one of the tree recycling sites across the borough and the date that these sites will be open has been extended to Sunday, January 30.

However, to provide a fair service to all garden waste customers, the council has said that apart from Christmas trees, the crews will be unable to collect extra garden waste because 'if they take extra garden waste from some customers, it will impact their ability to complete rounds, which would be unfair on those missed as a result'.

As they anticipate a large number of very full bins and Christmas trees being put out for the first collection, they have asked customers 'to bear with us while we clear the waste as quickly as we can'.

For more information on bin collections in Basingstoke and Deane visit www.basingstoke.gov.uk or follow @BasingstokeGov on Twitter or Facebook.