THE full fall-out from Southampton’s controversial bins shake-up has been laid bare, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Six months after the scheme was brought in, refuse bosses have told how fly-tipping has shot up and the number of complaints about pests has doubled.

It comes as the city’s alternate waste collection service faces its toughest challenge yet as bins begin to fill up with Christmas waste and recycling and collection dates are reorganised.

Now civic bosses have vowed to take action to improve the service.

They came under fire after a major review into the controversial alternate weekly bin collection (AWC) scheme was published.

The report into the the first six months of the scheme revealed that one in seven Southampton residents complained that their bins were overflowing and one third complained that they were full.

Waste bosses also admitted an increase in fly-tipping by 100 bags per month, while the total number of rodent and pest complaints doubled.

One in five Southampton residents also found that the transition to alternate weekly bin collection was difficult to adapt to.

The move, which came into force in June, was announced as part of a £42.3 million savings package which was agreed by the council in February.

It will reportedly save the authority £800,000 a year.

Councillor Jacqui Rayment, pictured below, was called before the council’s scrutiny board to face opposition council critics on the effectiveness of the scheme.

Among the issues was how customers could not get through to the councils customer service centre to get their complaints resolved and how the collection is forcing residents to fly-tip.

Officers also reported that maggot and pest infestations had almost doubled from nine to 17.

However, the board said many more had been submitted through other channels including being reported to councillors directly.

Cllr Rayment agreed that the council will constantly look at ways to improve the service in all areas.

Opposition leader on the council, Conservative Jeremy Moulton, vice chair of the board, said: “Alternate weekly bin collections are clearly impacting on people and making their lives harder.

“We need to look at tailoring the service more appropriately to people.

“The customer contact centre is shocking, people have continually contacted me to say that they cannot get through. They have got their heads stuck in the sand – the council is making it difficult to contact.

“The reason for this scheme is to save phone money but there will be extra costs created behind the scenes.”

Anti-cuts councillor Don Thomas, who represents Coxford on the council, added: “I am pleased to hear that Jacqui Rayment has admitted she has learnt lessons from the mistakes made in the introduction of alternative weekly collections.

“My main issue is the way they went about it, because locals couldn’t get through to the customer contact centre.

“We need to pick up on these issues as and when they happen.”

Councillor Keith Morrell, who also represents Coxford, added: “We are very aware that there are still problems and we think the extra resources put in place when AWC was introduced should be kept in place until everything is working smoothly.

“Alternate weekly bin collection in an urban environment will create problems; we need to ensure that waste collection is efficient and quick.

“With regards to fly-tipping, it’s clear that the workforce is doing all it can to make the system work but the statistics are not surprising and they show graphically that there are many unresolved problems. Fly-tipping creates public health issues and concerns in residential streets.”

In response, councillor Rayment said the majority of residents have got to grips with changes to collections but admitted there had been issues.

She added: “We have learnt lessons from introducing the service and are constantly making changes to make the service better.

“We had some issues with the action line at first but these have now been resolved. The easiest way to log an issue is to go online – when you submit the form it goes straight to the team for them to deal with.

“Because we introduced alternate weekly bin collection and then had an extremely warm few months – and people were still getting used to it – we saw a rise in infestations.

“I would hope by next year that things have settled down and people understand how to manage their waste better.”

A city council statement added: “There has been a five per cent reduction in the amount of general waste generated and a two per cent increase in the amount of materials recycled since the introduction of alternate weekly bin collection.

“Our advice to residents is to be mindful of how they store food waste in their bins and compost food waste for their gardens if possible.“For more information and tips on managing your waste visit southampton.gov.uk/recycle.”

As previously reported by the Daily Echo, rotting piles of household and garden waste were dumped at on Drummond Drive more than 75 times in the last six months.

Local councillors Bob Painton and Paul O’Neill also blamed the issue on local weekly bin collections having a ‘negative’ impact on the city.