A DUDLEY mum has told of her concerns at overflowing bins along her street after the refuse went uncollected for two weeks over Christmas.

Dudley Council have apologised, but the councillor in charge has also praised the 'extraordinary' work of the refuse teams through the problems of Covid and bad weather. 

Residents of three streets in Dudley were dismayed at the sight of bulging black bags stacked up alongside refuse bins that did not get emptied.

There were worries about the possibility of rats and foxes coming scavenging and ripping them open, but calls to the council failed to get an urgent response.

Instead people living in Himley St, Fulbrook and Walters Row had to wait until their next schedule collection, meaning they went from Christmas Eve to Friday, January 8.

Mother-of-two Leanne Hughes said she rang the council three times and was told that a mixture of the weather and Covid had delayed some collections.

But she was bemused because the recycling was collected as normal.

The irony for Leanne is that she had paid a private company from Wolverhampton £15 to collect rubbish before Christmas, knowing that the festive season always creates more waste.

“I’m just happy they have come an emptied them now.”

Councillor Karen Shakespeare, cabinet member responsible for waste care, said:

"We are sorry that some of our residents may have been affected by delayed waste and recycling collections over the last week.

"A combination of significantly increased recycling and household waste over the Christmas period, recent weather conditions and staffing issues due to COVID-19 pandemic has caused delays for some of our residents.

"Our team have been working exceptionally hard to catch up with the backlog and volunteering to work additional hours where they can, this means we have now caught up with our refuse collections.

"Recycling collections are also expected to be back to normal by the middle of next week. People are welcome to take recycling back in and place it out on their next scheduled collection if they prefer not to leave it on the kerbside."