NEARLY one in four Tameside residents have made a complaint to Tameside Council about missed bin collections.
And that saw Tameside Council finish ninth out of 336 local authorities across the UK for the highest number of complaints.
It follows the BBC sending Freedom of Information requests to 391 local authorities.
It revealed there are 241 complaints received for every 1,000 households in Tameside.
Cllr Phil Chadwick, Conservative councillor for Hyde Werneth and shadow spokesman for operations and neighbourhoods, said: “Yet again Tameside Labour tops the tables for something negative.
“They’ve been in control of Tameside for 40 years and are still failing to get the basics right.
“We are paying more for services yet getting less in return as illustrated by this gross mismanagement of a frontline service.
“Tameside Labour want to build thousands more houses locally, meaning there will be even more bins to collect.
“Just how do they expect to cope when they are struggling to deliver for residents already?”
Cllr Chadwick said residents can let the Conservatives know their feedback and priorities for the council by responding to a residents’ survey online at tamesideconservatives.com/bincollections
Councils in the UK received more than 1.8 million complaints last year about waste not being collected from homes, figures obtained by the BBC have shown.
A survey of councils found the number of complaints about missed collections has increased by a third since 2014.
On average, 4,500 complaints were made to UK councils every day last year.
The number of complaints may not correspond to the level of missed collections as some householders whose bins are not emptied may not report it.
BBC News found real terms spending on waste collection by local authorities has fallen to £888m in 2017-18, from £1billion in 2010-11 after accounting for inflation.
A Tameside Council spokesman said: “Bins can be classed as ‘missed’ for a range of reasons.
“They may be contaminated, which means they contain the wrong type of waste.
“Also, in a built-up urban area such as Tameside, roads and entries are often blocked by badly-parked vehicles which means our wagons can’t get through.
“In both cases – for reasons beyond the council’s control – it would be impossible to carry out collections. Yet these would fall under the ‘missed bins’ heading.
“To keep these occurrences to an absolute minimum we are working to educate the public and enforce regulations.
“We have also installed new technology in our cabs to allow us to more effectively monitor areas where we are aware of issues.
“We are committed to continually reviewing and improving our service, and to reducing the number of missed bins.
“We would also stress that these represent only a tiny fraction of the 12.1 million collections we make every year.”