AN immediate investment of more than £2m will be made in order to improve Barnsley’s waste collection service following months of complaints from residents and councillors.

A report, which is expected to be signed off by ruling cabinet members on Wednesday, sets out what is being done to streamline the service as a knock-on impact of January’s snow which resulted in more than 100,000 bins being missed.

The Chronicle can reveal £1.8m will go towards bringing in additional resources to ensure consistent collections, as well as up to £500,000 for blue and brown bin replacements.

According to the council, delivery charges for new blue and brown bins currently £31 will also be waived thanks to the investment.

The report said: “Services from across the council set out a comprehensive business continuity plan to ensure that we had considered the impacts of any changes associated with the programme.

“The safety and quality programme board was set up and advised and shaped the continuity plans.

“All involved did not foresee or plan for the scale of the severe weather in early January that caused a significant service impact.

“Multiple recovery plans were produced to reduce the backlog and quickly increased resource levels, securing more collection crews and vehicles to complete the recovery work required and undertake scheduled collections.

“Understandably, residents were unhappy about the situation, and this could be seen through social media, customer contact and complaints.

“The levels of ongoing customer feedback since the disruption caused by the snow and icy weather in January resulted in considerable pressure on the organisation and illustrated the importance of a dependable, safe and high- quality service.

“In consideration of this, we revised the business continuity plan for collection services across all waste streams to continue if there are further service interruptions.

“Crews also had a renewed emphasis on following their safe systems of work, including identifying bins which were damaged and cracked and not safe to be presented to the vehicle for lifting and emptying.

“This did slow the collection crews down and reduced the total number of collections made, whilst increasing customer dissatisfaction.

“As set out in detail later within this report, the service is requesting a resource envelope of up to £1.815m for the 2025/26 fiscal year to employ additional resources to ensure that we can maintain services to residents consistently throughout the period of this change programme, and up to £500,000 for blue and brown bin replacements.

“We will benchmark and review progress to ensure that the service is achieving the proper value for money requirement.”

More collection crews have been promised for the first phase of the new-look service, with two additional rounds scheduled for grey waste, two for brown and blue recycling and two for green waste.

Coun Jake Lodge, who represents the Worsbrough ward, welcomed the news having been responsible for submitting an official call for action motion with the local authority.

He added: “I hope that the sense of feeling has been recognised and that together we can work towards a safer, efficient and right first-time service.

“I welcome the move to scrap individual bin charges for the foreseeable, something which is a common sense move and I’m sure residents will appreciate it.”