A Chalfont St Peter resident has criticised Buckinghamshire Council for their methods of how members of the public can report a missing bin collection.

Former councillor David Meacock, who resides in the Gold Hill area of the civil parish, revealed to the Free Press that his elderly father’s bin was not emptied by refuse workers earlier in the autumn.

Describing it as ‘annoying, he said he was ‘surprised’ when he learnt that he was told to wait until after 6 pm on the day the bin was missed to report it to the unitary authority.

He said that the issue ‘should be dealt with at the earliest opportunity’ due to potentially ‘forgetting about it during the day’, and has slammed the council’s process in sorting out the problem.

Mr Meacock, who was a former Chiltern District and Bucks County councillor, said: “You should be able to report on it when you notice that the bins have not been taken, not wait a few hours to do so.

“When I tried to do it, I couldn’t report it, but you should be able to report on it when you notice it hasn’t been done.

“Especially with all the modern technology, we should be able to do it - it is annoying when you expect the bin to be done and it hasn’t been.

“My father is 92 years old, so he won’t be using it as much as other families, especially those which are quite large, as if their bin is missed, it could cause problems.”

Residents can check via the Buckinghamshire Council website to see what days certain collections take place within their respective streets.

Ade Osibogun, Cabinet Member for Environment, Climate Change and Waste said: “While it is possible for residents to report a missed collection earlier than 6pm, we generally ask residents to submit a report after this time, to ensure all collection rounds for that day are completed.

“A missed bin report can only be made once the individual crew has marked the collection for that road or address as complete.

“The timings for doing this will vary for a number of reasons.  

“Crews can make collections any time up to 6pm on the day so it is only from this time that we can be confident that a bin has been missed.

“Crews will then return within two working days of a reported missed collection, provided no valid reason for non-collection exists.

“Feedback on our services is always welcome.

“If anyone has a particular concern about the service, we encourage them to contact us directly so we can look into the matter in more detail.”