Rubbish is being left uncollected on “loads of streets” in Bristol as problem parking blocks bin lorries from accessing roads. The mayor promised to take action on the issue of obnoxious drivers blocking access, despite a lack of data about how widespread it is.
Some streets have seen bins “left lying around” for days or even an extra week, due to obnoxious parking, one councillor said during a member forum meeting on December 13. But Bristol City Council is not currently recording data on where problem parking hotspots are.
Green Councillor Martin Fodor, representing Redland, said: “Residents are concerned when collections don’t take place and bins are left lying around the pavements for extra days, sometimes for an extra week, because of access problems. I would like to know if there are records of these concerns, because they are affecting our services.
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“Residents in Falmouth Road, Melbourne Road, Monmouth Road, loads of streets that I represent, have countless times said ‘we didn’t get collections today because they couldn’t get through’, or an emergency vehicle couldn’t get through.”
When concerns about problem parking are raised with transport officers, these are addressed case by case. But the parking team at the council will soon work with residents to build evidence of where problem parking hotspots are across the city, and new double yellow lines could be painted on roads where parking is a particular issue.
Mayor Marvin Rees said: “Sometimes there are systems that don’t necessarily work in the way that we would want them to work. We don’t think this system is working in the way that it should. I’m not sure that the records are being kept in the way that we want them to be kept.
“If there are particular hotspots, we should be collecting data, that we don’t have to go and pursue to find out if there’s a hotspot. Now it might be that the complexity of the road layout means it’s really difficult to get a solution, in an old city like this it is. But at least we should know it’s difficult to get a solution. We are going to look into this some more.”
