Councillor reveals why she is backing no-confidence vote in county leader

* The roll-out of the new waste recycling system 

has been fraught by problems. 

Llangollen county councillor Karen Edwards has given her reasons for supporting a vote of no-confidence in Denbighshire County Council (DCC) leader, Jason McLellan, which has been called for by fellow members. 

In a statement to llanblogger she says: "I have previously expressed my concerns in June with regard to the systemic failures in the new waste collection and recycling system which have continued to persist.  

"Whilst there may be some service improvements we continue to experience multiple incidents of missed collections, co-mingling of waste, missed green waste and commercial collections, residents on unadopted roads still encountering a sporadic service and non-collection of many surplus bins whilst many residents are still waiting for AHP containers.   

"All this is coming at a heavy cost and this marginally improved service is only enabled by the addition of significant extra resources, personnel working overtime, Saturday collections and the diversion of DCC staff from their usual duties. 

"This is enabling the current failed system at a cost of £55-60k per week with no clarity from the Cabinet or DCC leadership on when this unplanned cost will reduce which is unsustainable. 

"In the face of this we are only offered continuous apologies by the DCC CEO (Chief Executive Officer), Corporate Director, Head of Service for Waste and the Cabinet with no clarity on the root causes of the failings evident, commitment to systemic changes and evidence of a recovery plan with any measurable performance and cost improvement targets being set and reported against.  

"Whilst operationally matters may be improving, we are seeing no reporting of performance in terms of completed and missed collections and financially it appears no evidence of control has been established.  

"My opinion remains that the planning and implementation of this roll out was simply not fit for purpose and since the issues started there is no clear evidence of a structured and measurable recovery plan. 

"As the leader of the Cabinet states, “apologies don’t collect bins'. They also don’t pay for the additional costs which are being incurred every week as DCC struggles to improve their performance with no end date as to when this will be resolved. Ultimately the residents I represent will be asked to pay for this continued failure which is not acceptable. 

"Therefore, as one of the Llangollen independent ward members I supported the motion for a Vote of No Confidence."