ONGOING staff shortages mean New Forest District Council is still unable to restart its garden waste collection services.

The council halted the service on July 19 and had hoped to resume collections after a minimum of four weeks but says it is "unable to provide a date" for recommencing the service.

It says the "severe staff shortages" are due to the national HGV driver shortages.

A spokesperson for the district council said: "On 19 July, we took the difficult service decision to stop collecting garden waste as we did not have enough staff across all our waste collection services.

"The severe staff shortages, due to national HGV driver shortages, is ongoing and we must prioritise essential services, including black and clear sack collections.

"At this stage we are unable to provide a date for recommencing our garden waste service, but we are reviewing this daily. We are continuing to monitor staffing levels and are actively seeking to recruit additional staff.

"Residents are being asked to compost their garden waste or take it to one of Hampshire County Council’s Household Waste Recycling Centres in the meantime.

"Our garden waste service collects from roughly 10,500 of our 80,000 households each week, we understand that for some people disposing of garden waste will be difficult.

"We are doing all we can to reinstate the service as soon as possible and will keep residents updated with any changes via our website, social media and residents email."

 

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