Devon street snubbed by bin men for five weeks

Residents in a Devon village say they have gone five weeks without having their recycling collected. Despite reporting missed collections, the council has only just explained that building works were preventing collection teams from accessing their homes.

Nicola Perrott, who lives in Deer Combe, Stoke Fleming in South Devon, says that for five weeks she watched the recycling lorry stop to collect waste from properties in nearby West Park and then "refuse" to collect hers or her neighbours' bins. She says a number of residents repeatedly contacted South Hams District Council (SHDC) to report the missed collections but that nothing was done.

She said: "We have not been able to recycle for the last five weeks. Despite repeated phone calls and emails from a number of residents, our recycling is still not being collected. Oddly, the recycling lorry will collect the recycling from West Park but refuses to collect ours.

"We all leave our recycling on the kerbside of our properties, recycling lorries, oil tankers and supermarket delivery vans can access our properties. Yet the recycling is still not collected.

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"I have submitted a complaint to Devon County Council and repeatedly contacted South Hams waste recycling, I have little faith it will be addressed as the numerous phone calls and recording missed collections has proven fruitless. We do not want to put our recycling in the black bin, we want it collected, a service we pay for."

After DevonLive contacted SHDC on Monday (June 3) to ask why residents' recycling had not been collected for so long, Nicola confirmed that a crew attended Deer Combe the following day (Tuesday, June 4). SHDC says that the access to the properties had been restricted by building works.

A SHDC spokesperson said: "We have collected waste and recycling from properties at Deer Combe, Stoke Fleming, yesterday (4 June). Building works restricted access for our waste lorries, leading to the missed collections.

"The access has now been cleared, and we have sent a crew to collect the waste and recycling from affected properties. We have also spoken in person to some of the residents affected, to apologise for any inconvenience caused and explain the disruption. Residents of Deer Combe should experience no further disruption."