Leader of Milton Keynes Council, Cllr Pete Marland, has expressed his disappointment with how waste contractor Serco has been operating in some areas during the pandemic.
A listener asked the Council leader why the waste collectors often missed areas on their routes or why they were often unable to return wheelie bins to the correct house.
Speaking to MKFM on this issue, Milton Keynes Council leader, Cllr Pete Marland, gave his thoughts on waste contractor Serco as he said: "The contract that we currently have with our current provider is not great.
"I get people who email me saying that their collections are consistently missed because they live down a little bit or whatever. I get that at the moment crews are changing all the time etc but if it's every two weeks, and you are paying your council tax, it's just not good enough.
"They shouldn't be doing it, it's not a good service.
"I think the maximum fine we can impose on them without revoking the contract would be £500 and that's if they miss a whole round or whether they aren't delivering bins back to people's doors.
"A lot of missed collections at the moment are because the bin lorries aren't able to access the streets, maybe because more people are at home and there are more cars parked on the road.
"They've been under a lot of pressure during the pandemic, but so have other services like the NHS.
"If you are a binman, and you are running to pick up boxes and throw them in the back, sometimes there is human error. Maybe the box might have a number on it but the house number isn't visible so occasionally the boxes are returned to the wrong address.
"I thank the people for their service over the last 18 months but I don't believe the service has performed in the way that it should have done and that's not good enough.
"There should be a means for us to say that it's not good enough. At the moment, all there is getting someone into the office and continually telling them that it's not good enough.
"Ultimately, you've got to have an escalation. No one is going to take a multi-million-pound contract off someone for missing someone's bins but when we come to recontract that service, or look at doing it ourselves, we will make sure we have the proper mechanisms to hold the service provider to account - not just on the big things."
The Council's waste contractor Serco have experienced some issues with being understaffed during the pandemic after a number of positive COVID-19 tests emerged within their workforce earlier this year.
Collections only regularly resumed in March, after being suspended for just over two months.
