A KILBIRNIE pensioner said she is disgusted because her bins were not emptied for two weeks.


Mrs Jean Kerr, of Parkhouse Drive, said that despite daily phone calls to North Ayrshire Council over the festive period, her bins were left overflowing while those of her neighbours were emptied twice.


She told the Herald: “I made about 16 calls to the council and got nowhere. I phoned every day.


“All the black bags were full up and spilling out the top of my bin. It’s absolutely terrible.”


According to Mrs Kerr, her bins were emptied on Tuesday, December 22 and were not picked up again until Tuesday, January 5.


In that time, she said, her neighbours’ bins were emptied twice.


She told the Herald: “At the first collection after the Tuesday before Christmas, the bin men came round but I was the only one they didn’t go to.
“When I phoned, the council told me that the bin men weren’t working but they were – my neighbours’ bins were all emptied!”


Mrs Kerr is 82 and suffers from a bad heart so she relies on North Ayrshire Council’s assisted bin pull out service.


The service is for those who have difficulty putting out their rubbish, such as people who are elderly or disabled.


Mrs Kerr said: “They told me they wouldn’t leave me over the festive season but they did.


“I’m old and my health is not good. I’m not fit enough to take out my own bins – I can hardly even do my hoovering.


“I need them to pull out my bins for me. They know what residents they are to pull out bins for – they have a list with them.


“It’s really bad of them to do this to anybody. The drivers should be reprimanded.”


Mrs Kerr said that she called the council on January 5 after the bin collection missed her for a second time.


According to the pensioner, she told them that if her refuse was not attended to soon, she would go public.


Her bins were apparently collected a few hours later.


She said: “I told them I was going to phone the papers because I thought it was disgusting.”


A spokesperson for North Ayrshire Council this week confirmed Mrs Kerr’s bins had finally been emptied and apologised to the pensioner.


They said: “Following a complaint received from Mrs Kerr, we can confirm that her bins have now been uplifted.


“We apologise to Mrs Kerr that her normal collections were missed and for the inconvenience this has caused.


“As the matter is being treated as a complaint under the council’s two stage complaint handling procedure, we will investigate what happened and provide a response direct to Mrs Kerr.


“The festive period is an extremely busy time for our waste collection service and we invest in extra resources to ensure the council is able to collect additional waste put out by customers.”


The council spokesperson added: “Over the Christmas and New Year period, the council made almost 280,000 bin lifts and received only a handful of complaints.


“These are being investigated and will help ensure we continue to improve the excellent service we already offer to our residents and customers.”