Waste and recycling collections on unadopted and private roads

Flintshire County Council is proposing a new policy for waste and recycling collections for properties on private or unadopted roads.

A private road is owned and maintained by a private individual, organisation or company rather than by the Council. Unadopted roads are those that do not have to be maintained by the highway authority and the legal duty to maintain these lies with the owners of the road, which usually consists of the owners of the properties fronting that road. 

Occasionally, some of these roads are not appropriately maintained, and following three serious incidents that occurred between October 2022 and January 2023 a review of waste and recycling rounds, specifically focused on properties located on private and unadopted roads has been conducted. These incidents not only posed a significant risk of injury to employees, but also led to considerable damage to the vehicles operated by the Council, leading to increased costs.

The review consisted of an extensive site-specific risk assessment of all 585 unadopted and private roads served by household collections in Flintshire and has led to the proposal that there is a requirement for unadopted and private roads to meet conditions suitable for waste and recycling collections to continue to take place from the property boundary. Most of the properties assessed are located on roads that are already at this standard and, where they aren’t, waste will be collected from the nearest adopted road. This will reduce unnecessary risk to employees and maintenance requirements to vehicles. 

Katie Wilby, Chief Officer Streetscene and Transportation said:

“Safety is a core value in everything that we do, and we have a legal obligation to ensure that our collection crews have a safe working environment.  We are asking people living on private or unadopted roads to help us by ensuring that these roads are in an adequate condition so that collection staff can work safely or, if this isn’t possible, use collection points on the adopted highway.”

Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Regional Transport Strategy, Councillor Dave Hughes, said:

“The Council has a duty to its residents to collect household waste, as well as a duty of care for the safety and wellbeing of its employees. This proposal will mean that the Council can continue to provide this essential service safely to everyone in our communities.”

Anybody with an Assisted Collection will be unaffected and will continue to have waste and recycling collected from the agreed point on their property.

Members of the Corporate Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee will discuss the proposed changes at a meeting on November 16th.