3,500 homes in Powys experienced missed or delayed bin collections following the roll-out of a new schedule, a meeting has heard.

A joint meeting of Powys County Council’s Governance and Audit Committee and Economy, Residents and Communities (ERC) scrutiny committee on 15 July also heard that the reported figures could also be the tip of the iceberg as many people would not have bothered going through the council’s reporting process.

The joint committee were looking at the results of an independent review of the new collection routes, by WRAP Cymru.

The review follows the shambolic roll out of new collection routes from March which has seen rubbish and recycling left uncollected for days on end, causing anger amongst residents.

Before the roll out missed collection complaints had been at 0.1 per cent rising to a peak of 0.47 per cent and in March.

Waste and recycling portfolio holder, Cllr Richard Church took over the brief in May replacing Cllr Jackie Charlton following a cabinet reshuffle.

Cllr Church said: “By the time I’d taken on the portfolio, the reliability of the service was already beginning to improve, and it’s continued to improve since.

“By the end of June, 0.24 per cent of collections were reporting as missed.”

By the first week of July thus figure was down to 0.17 per cent.

The report explains that around five per cent of residents which is around 3,500 properties experienced delays and missed collections.

Governance and Audit committee vice -chairman and independent lay member John Brautigam said: “I’d like to know why we are using reported misses rather than actual totals.

“Are they not known and if not, are we taking steps to know what they are going to be in future?

“From my own experience, my bin collections were missed five times during that period, I reported them online four times and by telephone twice.

“On each occasion I was promised a call back, but it didn’t happen.”

Cllr Church: “The firmest data we have is the reported missed collections.

“We don’t know what we don’t know if people who have collections missed and don’t report it.

“The problems during that two months is that there were repeat missed collections in certain areas but measuring them precisely is difficult.”

Waste and recycling senior manager Ashley Collins said: “It’s the biggest thing that let us down through the process.”

“We do have a system in place, it did fall over particularly in the north (of Powys), we have been very keen to address it.

“We ask and want people to report it so then we have figures we can use.

“Longer term we are looking to introducing in-cab technology so they will need to tick off areas as they do it so that will make them much more accountable.

“At the moment it is all paper based.”

The joint committee will produce a number of recommendations on the findings of the report so that the council learns lessons for the future.