Great Yarmouth Borough Council to suspend collection of bulky waste items

The council asks residents with large waste items to hold onto these on their own properties until normal service is resumed. Residents are reminded not to use illegal waste collectors, as this results in fly-tipping. It is the legal duty of the householder to check that anyone they pass waste onto has a waste carrier licence from the Environment Agency.

No further bookings of bulky waste can be made, but collections booked before March 26 are still being undertaken into next week. In order to focus resources of essential services, the council has scaled back a number of other non-essential services, such as grass-cutting and grounds-maintenance. The situation will be kept under review.

The council is also postponing brown bin garden waste collections for four weeks, from Monday, March 30. Garden waste collection is an opt-in paid-for scheme, so customers will have their subscriptions extended by a month to account for the loss of the two fortnightly collections. At this time, no new subscriptions can be made to the scheme nor existing subscriptions renewed.

Cllr Penny Carpenter, chairman of the environment committee, said: "In line with Government guidelines, the council is prioritising staff and resources into our most essential and necessary services, which includes the collection of rubbish bins, recycling bins and clinical collections.

"We apologise for any inconvenience caused, but these are exceptional circumstances and it is neither possible nor desirable to operate business as usual. I would like to pay tribute to all the staff who are keeping essential services going and to thank the public for their continued understanding and patience. We are continuing to review the situation and will resume normal service as soon as circumstances allow. Please bear with us."