Extra rubbish collections to clear backlog in Cornwall

Some homes have reported waste not being collected for about 10 days

Extra rubbish collections are to be put on to clear a backlog of waste in Cornwall.

More than 250,000 households have been affected by county-wide changes to collections after Cory Environmental Services took over services in April.

Cory managers apologised and said that "mistakes" had been made because of the scale of the operation in taking over all waste services.

Cornwall's eight-year contract with Cory is worth about £125m.

Rat concerns

The Conservative-Independent unitary authority's contract with Cory was part of work to standardise collections across the county's former six district council areas.

Backlogs of up to 10 days have been reported in some areas.

Gordon Ennis, who lives at Coombe Park, near Camborne, said his area had been missed last week, adding he was concerned that rats could get into waste bags left outside about 30 park homes there.

One member of Cory staff, and the wife of another staff member - who all wished to remain anonymous - told BBC Cornwall they believed some problems were down to workers and vehicles from different areas being put on routes and into new areas that they were not familiar with.

Cory managing director Nigel Carr said staff were "reacting to issues and problems as soon as they can".

'Won't make excuses'

He said the company was dealing with "many complexities" and apologised for missed collections.

He added: "I won't make excuses. Clearly there are going to be mistakes."

He added that extra rounds were being put on within existing resources to make up the backlog.

Cornwall Council said it had anticipated "some initial teething problems" and revealed that about 3,600 collections had been reported as missed.

Households can <link> <caption>report missed collections</caption> <url href="http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/missedcollection" platform="highweb"/> </link> on the council's website.