Mid Ulster Council aims to continue with black bin collections

The week-long industrial action by members of UNITE begins on Monday and continues until Sunday (March 27), and will largely affect bin collection services and two leisure centres.

While brown bins will not be collected during the week-long action, which potentially involves more than 130 of the Council’s employees, the Council aims to continue with black bin collections as far as possible.

Residents are being advised to leave their black bins out for collection on the normal day by 7.30am and black bins will be emptied where there are sufficient crews to deliver a service.

If black bins are not emptied, residents are being asked to take their bins back in from the kerbside and place them out again on their next scheduled collection day during the week beginning April 4.

The Council has also confirmed that in cases where a collection service does not take place, residents can leave up to two waste bags beside their black bins on the next collection day.

All recycling centres will remain open during the week and in a bid to mitigate some of the impact, the three largest centres in Cookstown, Dungannon and Magherafelt will open until 7.30pm on Tuesday 22 March, Wednesday 23 March and Thursday 24 March. These centres will also have additional resources on site including bin lifting equipment to allow additional black bin waste to be accepted.

Meanwhile in Cookstown and Greenvale Leisure Centres, swimming pools will be closed on Monday (March 21), with the availability of swimming reviewed on a daily basis for the remainder of the week.

There will be no public swimming lessons and no school swimming lessons in either centre for the duration of the industrial action, and fitness classes will also be limited.

The Council anticipates that all other services and facilities, including recycling centres, cemeteries, play facilities, parks, arts and cultural facilities, will operate as normal and will keep the situation under review as the week progresses.