REDCAR and Cleveland Council will resume the normal scheduled collection of garden waste again on Tuesday, August 17, following a temporary suspension of the service.

The council was forced to make alterations to the service last month due to a steep increase in the number of staff, including trained drivers, who were self-isolating. During this period the number of cases of Covid-19 in the region rose dramatically.

The council has kept the situation under constant review following the suspension on July 14 and is now reintroducing the collection of garden waste now it is safe to do so.

From Tuesday, August 17, residents, whose garden bins are due on that day, are being advised to present it alongside their blue recycling bin by 7am on the scheduled day of collection. Collections will continue as normal from that date.

Councillor Julie Craig, Cabinet Member for Highways, Neighbourhoods and Transport, said: “I would like to thank our residents for their patience while the garden waste collection service has been temporarily suspended and hope they understand that we had no choice but to take this action to ensure we maintained our household waste and recycling collections.

“This is the time of year when people will be enjoying and working on their gardens and I would like to reassure our residents that we have reinstated the service as soon as we possibly could.

“We are anticipating high volumes of garden waste due to the break in collections and we have additional vehicles and crews out to deal with this however we are asking residents to be sensible with the build-up of garden waste and remind them that additional garden waste can be disposed of at the Dunsdale Recycling Centre.”