Thursday 28th April 2022 - Waste collection and street cleansing industrial action update

Wealden District Council has been informed by its waste collection and street cleansing contractor, Biffa, that members of their workforce belonging to the GMB union intend to take strike action from Monday 2nd May over pay.

Whilst Biffa continue to negotiate with the GMB union and the staff involved to reach a fair settlement, this action will inevitably impact on the waste collection and street cleansing services they are able to operate.

Council officers are continuing to work with Biffa’s management to reduce the impact on services.

From day one of the strike on Monday 2^nd May, we intend to publish daily updates on our website explaining which services are operating and which are unfortunately not operating.

We have also produced a list of questions and answers to explain to residents what is happening and why, what the impact may be and, what you can do.

If you have a bin due to be emptied this Monday 2^nd May, please place it out as normal however, if it is not emptied, please bring it back in as we will not be able to return until at least the next scheduled collection day.

Please keep checking the website for the latest information and do not call our contact centre for information on the strike action. They are fully occupied helping people across a range of services and will not have any information in addition to that published on our website.

We will also provide regular updates on our social media channels Twitter and Facebook. A weekly update will be included on our e-newsletter, MyAlerts, emailed to subscribers each Friday.  To subscribe to receive MyAlerts enter My Alerts into the search bar on our website home page and follow the links.

We apologise for any inconvenience that may be caused by this short-term situation and would also like to thank our residents for their understanding during this time.