Glasgow councillor's 'disappointment' over lack of west end bin hubs

The on-street hubs will replace back court collections
-Credit:Glasgow City Council


A Glasgow councillor has said he is "disappointed" that West End residents have not yet benefited from the city council’s multi-million pound bin hub programme.

During the environment and liveable neighbourhoods committee, Hillhead councillor Ken Andrew raised concerns that bin hubs had not yet been introduced into the area with high levels of tenemental properties which he believes struggles with recycling and refuse collection.

It comes following a pilot programme which saw parts of Pollokshields, Haghill and Anderston benefit from the scheme in 2023. In September 2024 it was announced that Cessnock would be included in the pilot.

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Over 4100 flats are now serviced via a network of 171 bin hubs while during the budget setting meeting of 2024/25 £7.1m was awarded to fund the expansion of the bin hub project to traditional tenement flats.

Councillor Ken Andrew said: “As someone who represents Hillhead which has one of the highest concentrations of tenemental properties of anywhere in Scotland, I am wondering about the rationale about the rolling out of bin hubs to the South West of Glasgow.

“I am very disappointed that it has not been rolled out in the West End given the problems that we have in terms of backlanes and managing refuse collections from backlanes.

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“One of the things I said at the beginning was that the West End was going to present more challenges and what I had suggested because it was going to be difficult, surely that was the place to trial these bin hubs to work out the difficulties and how they are managed.

“It is slightly disappointing that in an area that does have huge challenges in terms of recycling and general refuse collection that we don’t have bin hubs put in there. The North West doesn’t sound like the West End of Glasgow so clearly we are many years away.”

The bin hub programme was launched following concerns over safety faced by council staff when collecting bins from back courts or back lanes.

The new approach sees bins emptied more frequently and it is hoped it will reduce missed bin collections while also helping residents to keep their back courts in better condition.

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A council officer informed members that they had rolled out the pilot in 2023 and 2024 and are now looking for the next areas to expand the bin hubs to.

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It was also clarified that the Northwest Dasholme Depot which services all of the West End is likely to be involved in the implementation of the bin hubs later in the year.

A spokesman said: “Sheildhall, the depot that manages the Southwest area, also has some operational issues with some of the tenements in the Southwest.

“Paisley Road West has received bin hubs to try and address and alleviate some of those issues. I think we were expanding to another 20,000 closes or thereabouts within the South West.

“It gives the teams a better idea and a picture of how that is going to operate to a number of properties. Once that is done, which is expected to be towards the end of this year, the Northwest of the city is the next area we want to move into.

“I think the West End is going to provide a lot of challenges as well.”

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