Sandwell Council leader confirms weekly bin collections will continue
The leader of Sandwell Council has finally confirmed the borough's bins will continue to be collected weekly.
Councillor Kerrie Carmichael previously said "nothing was off the table" until the Sandwell Council was given the exact Government settlement.
However, after Levelling Up Minister Michael Gove's department revealed the budget this week, Councillor Carmichael told taxpayers weekly bin collections would remain.
Councillor Kerrie Carmichael told the Express & Star: "Until the Government officially announced how much they were cutting from Sandwell's budget, on top of the £170 million they have already cut, we couldn't take anything off the table to protect essential services.
"In spite of those further cuts, changes to bin collections was never part of Labour's plan. We'll formally lay out our budget plan later in the month at the budget meeting."
She added: "In the meantime, I would ask our Conservative MPs and Conservative Councillors to stop scaremongering and write to Rishi Sunak and ask for Sandwell to get a fair deal that protects people of this borough, protects public services and can start to fix the 14 years of austerity and the damage it's done here."