Residents and council officials alike are complaining about the stinky streets of Leeds. The city’s refuse workers are currently striking for a third time, so a backlog of rubbish has accumulated and it is started to smell thanks to the UK’s recent warm weather.
Many residents have not had their rubbish collected in around three weeks and in the Headingley area of the city, some people have not had their rubbish collected since April 16th. Paul Harris, who lives with five housemates on Eastcourt Terrace, is one of these residents and he told reporters that his household has been forced to keep their rubbish inside the house in order to cope with the backlog.
As Mr Harris explains: “There is too much rubbish to put out on the street, it is causing access problems for pavements and roads. We have been forced to store it under the stairs and in the hall as the bins are full outside.” Mr Harris then added that Britain’s recent heatwave has not helped matters, he said: “It is not very pleasant living in a house full of rubbish, as it starts to stink, especially in this weather.” At present, the weather in Leeds is much warmer than it usually is at this time of year. Indeed, the temperature was recently found to be a high 22c in the shade - significantly higher than this season’s average temperature of 14c.
Leeds City Council’s Steven Smith is responsible for refuse collections in the city and apologised to residents for the lack of refuse collections during the refuse worker’s strikes. He said: “The GMB is deliberately making life difficult for us and residents by continuing its industrial action and work to rule.”
Refuse workers are currently on strike as a result of the pay and grading review that is being carried out by all local authorities in the UK. The GMB union, which represents the refuse workers, told Leeds City Council that it wants the pay for its women workers to be increased to match the salary paid to their male colleagues. However, the GMB claim that their current pay review offer actually means that male refuse workers would have their pay reduced to be the same as their female colleagues. Because of this, GMB spokesperson Bill Chard has told the council that industrial action will continue until the matter is resolved. He said: “This action will not only continue, in fact it will multiply.”
Despite the threat of more action from the GMB, council officials reassured Leeds residents that the backlog of rubbish should hopefully be cleared by Sunday. In addition to this, they also said that also said that normal refuse collection services should be resumed by Monday.
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