Bin lorries at Brighton’s depot have been deliberately vandalised, council leader Bella Sankey says.
Brighton and Hove City Council have today released images of cut wires on two lorries and say CCTV at the Cityclean depot is now being checked.
Scores of collections have been missed after a huge spike in reported lorry defects in the days after the council announced it would be making redundancies at the end of January.
The same week, a Twitter account run by GMB branch secretary Mark Turner warned that chaos was set to hit Brighton in a series of swiftly deleted posts.
Members of the GMB union have since voted for strike action over the job losses and changes to working practices, but as of last week no dates had been set while negotiations continued.
Today, council leader Bella Sankey said the city would “not be held to ransom”.
She said: “We know the vast majority of Cityclean staff are extremely hard working and want to do an excellent job for our residents and the city.
“However, the sabotage and resulting disruption of recent weeks shows there are a small minority who are disrupting our waste and recycling service.
“Under my leadership, we will not be held to ransom by these people.
“The cutting of lorry wires is unlawful and scandalous, and is extremely dangerous to our staff.
“It’s also criminal activity which has been reported and is being investigated by Sussex Police.”
On Monday 29 January the council started briefing unions and staff about the cuts contained in the council’s draft budget for the 2024-25 financial year.
The previous week, 17 Cityclean vehicles had reported defects which put them out of action for at least part of a day, but that week, this rose to 48.
Town hall bosses today said the dramatic increase in vehicle defects also followed dismissal action that was taken as a result of a KC report published last October which found widespread racist, homophobic and sexist bullying and harassment at the depot.
The “chaos” tweets – which also critised Ms Sankey and the local Labour party – were published on 8 Feburary. The national GMB press office disowned them and said it would investigate how it came to be posted. The results of that investigation have not yet been published.
The council is leading a programme of culture change to reorganise, improve and modernise the service after the damning King’s Counsel report into Cityclean, commissioned by the Council, which highlighted a culture of racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying and violence at the depot.
Councillor Sankey added: “Ensuring we have a waste and recycling service that keeps our city clean and tidy is an absolute priority for myself and the leadership of the council.
“We’re taking the necessary steps to find out who is responsible for this illegal sabotage and they will face the most serious disciplinary action.”
A letter to staff from Donna Chisholm, the council’s executive director for economy, environment and culture, about the sabotage, states: “From the outset I want to thank all our hardworking staff who have kept the service going recently under very challenging and changing conditions.
“I also know the vast majority of you take pride in your work and set out every day to provide a great service to our residents and businesses.
“Sadly, I’m also writing to everyone regarding the recent disruption to services due to an increase in the number of vehicle defects.
“As you may know, there’s been deliberate damage to two vehicles where wires have been cut. This is unacceptable.
“I know you’ll be concerned because deliberate damage can be very dangerous and certainly causes disruption to your rounds.
“I want to reassure you, we take deliberate vehicle damage extremely seriously.
“We’re reviewing our CCTV and are determined find out who is carrying out this criminal damage. Once identified they’ll face the most serious disciplinary action.”
Ms Chisholm adds: “The huge amount of dropped work and missed collections has led to residents and customers feeling the service we’re now providing is poor, which is not a good reflection on the hard work that staff carry out on a daily basis.”
Cityclean managers say they’re beginning to clear the backlog of missed collections – for both residential and communal bins – and are trying to ensure extra waste around the latter is cleared away as soon as possible.
There’s also been a recruitment drive which will see ten new drivers and operatives joining the service. Additional agency staff have been recruited to help get the service back on track.
Evolutionary throwback Mark Turner and his atavism union would do well to go relocate to Northern Ireland where they also think the world stopped evolving in the 1970s. We need a new workforce of grown-ups that just do the job they are being paid to do. If you don’t like it, then leave.
It would be interesting to see them try that on an electric vehicle, because they’d get 400 volts through them.
most likely the binmen did it themselves
well derr u complete simpleton
No comment from the GMB? Come on Lib your members work hard to give us residents a constant headache. At least attempt to defend this. Or Mark tweet something you know you want to.
Turner needs to disappear, somewhere dark. If a strike goes ahead I shall cancel my council tax. Independents in politicians out, at least the green and red variety. Agree get some grown ups in.
If there’s a strike and you cancel your council tax, that puts pressure on the council which plays into the union’s hands.
For the first time in years, the council is standing up to the bullies at Cityclean. Labour, Conservative or Independent, we need to support them in this, don’t turn it into a party political issue, we must show our support for the people who are (finally) standing up to these criminals.
Totally obvious that this is an act of self sabotage by GMB workers/ officials and residents are pretty much fed up with the lot of them, we just want our bins collected, (we certainly pay enough). Cllr Sankey absolutely needs to get on top of this and ensure we are getting a regular and proper refuse collection, (its the minimum most residents require)
Sounds like a certain GMB boss needs to be arrested and charged for incitement to criminal damage, if nothing else. Surely the CCTV footage will have captured the culprit/s.
Microwaves, now bin lorry’s. When will it end? 🤣🤣
Stop paying taxpayers money for staff to be union officials. Make members pay the wages of union officers and then see how many there are.