Oldham Council leader: All staff are 'mucking in'

Oldham Council leader Sean Fielding working at home

Oldham Council leader Sean Fielding has moved to reassure everyone throughout the Borough that everything in his staff's power is being done to get dustbins emptied on time.

The current Coronavirus lock-down measures have led to concern from worried residents and businesses, but Mr Fielding has revealed that all Council staff are 'mucking in' as they work hard to get essential jobs like waste collection done.

Mr Fielding told the Chronicle: "Our refuse collection service has been affected due to some of the staff who would normally be out there emptying, now having to self-isolate.

"Some of them might also be in the vulnerable groups that need to be shielded.

"That means we have fewer people working on the bins than we would on a normal day.

"However, the advice for the moment is to continue to put out your bins as you normally would, although the Council is currently prioritising the collection of grey and green bins - that's the food and the general waste.

"We're making sure we get those emptied.

"If you are on a week when you'd normally put out your blue or brown bin for recycling, it maybe that those are not collected because staff that would normally collect those are working on collecting general and food waste.

"But we would recommend that you just return those to your properties if they aren't collected by the end of the day.

"We are looking at making provisions for people who do feel that all their bins need emptying, though."

Clearly these are massively challenging times for Council leaders and staff, but they are all doing their utmost to keep services moving and available.

"Everybody is mucking in and doing things that they wouldn't normally do in order to keep the Council running," said Mr Fielding.

"That includes people like me who have volunteered to get involved with different services and voluntary groups.

"It's all hands to the pump. People who normally undertake office-based roles might be out on the streets now."

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