Dumfries and Galloway Council vows clarity on bank holiday bin collection

A failure to collect bins on recent bank holidays in the region saw complaints pile up

A council has promised to improve communications following public outcry over the lack of bank holiday bin collections.

Hundreds of people complained on social media after an interruption of the service over the Easter weekend.

Dumfries and Galloway Council held a special meeting - in private - to discuss the situation.

Convener Malcolm Johnstone said arrangements for future public holidays would be set out more clearly.

In previous years, bin collections have been carried out over the Easter weekend and on the May bank holiday, but this year workers took the days off.

More than 900 comments were made on the council Facebook post highlighting the issue.

This prompted the council to call a special meeting to discuss how the situation had arisen.

'Important service'

It was held in private as it involved the discussion of council staff working practices.

Following the meeting Mr Johnstone said any future public holiday arrangements would be set out more clearly.

The next ones are not until Christmas Day, Boxing Day and 1 and 2 January.

"Even although the discussion today was held in private, this does not preclude us from wishing to assure both our workforce and the general public that waste collection is an extremely important service for our constituents of Dumfries and Galloway," said Mr Johnstone.

"We will continue to hold constructive and regular conversations with our workforce and the joint trade unions, to ensure we have a collective way forward as to how waste collection will be handled for future public holidays."

The council added it would do everything it could to avoid any repeat of what had happened at Easter.