Is the worst of Harrogate's bin collection woes over?

Figures this week show the borough council completed 99.9 per cent of its scheduled collections over Monday and Tuesday.

Monday saw 99.1 per cent of scheduled bins collected, while on Tuesday residual waste was picked up from 7980 properties, a 99.99 per cent success rate.

All scheduled green waste and recycling was also retrieved on Tuesday.

Previously, the council's 'baseline' - the figure it operated off before changing its collection routes in late June - was 98.5 per cent.

According to the council, external issues - such as vehicles blocking the road, staff sickness, or vehicle breakdown - have always prevented the collection of every last bin.

The improved figures come the week after the local democracy reporting service revealed that more than 2,500 missed collections were reported across the district in July.

The council had been plagued with missed collections it attributed to "teething problems" as it waited for the new routes to "bed in", following the overhaul of recycling and household bin collections was implemented on June 24.

Council leader Richard Cooper said last week that the issues would be fixed within two to three weeks.

Multiple pockets of the community from across the Harrogate district have reported in recent weeks of not having their waste picked-up since the June changes, with those issues continuing into August.

Others have suffered from irregular collections since the changes were brought in.

Lachlan Leeming, Local Democracy Reporter