Birmingham residents have declared that "third world countries are better" than their city as thousands more bin bags line their streets.As the Unite Union strike against waste collection reaches its fifth week, locals are becoming increasingly infuriated by the state of their city, claiming it is "disgusting".FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00Collection of rubbish on the streets is a different matter.
00:03The council themselves and cabinet member for environment on the council,
00:07Councillor Majid Mahmood, admits that it could be three or four weeks still
00:10before that kinds of levels of rubbish left on street corners that we've seen is collected.
00:15But a better sign this morning that bin lorries have been out and about.
00:19We also know that Birmingham City Council are paying a commercial rate
00:22for Litchfield District Council bin lorries to come and also help them out
00:26with collecting those wheelie bins and rubbish from around the city.
00:31So there is a better sign there for residents.
00:34And as we've seen, as I've been at the past couple of days,
00:37mobile waste collection centres where people can try and bring their rubbish.
00:41Your writer mentioned the 21,000 tonnes of litter and rubbish that's been left uncollected
00:46because of these all-out strikes now in its fifth week.
00:50Negotiations continuing between Birmingham City Council and Unite.
00:54A couple of days ago said that those talks were intensive.
00:58Birmingham City Council called them productive.
00:59But seemingly yesterday, no agreement reached as so far.
01:03And so these strikes continue and those concerns around public health continue as well.
01:09But as all of these people around this city deal with the bins,
01:13the MP for Hodge Hill and Solihull North, who's also chair of the Business and Trade Committee,
01:19Liam Byrne, he's been in Japan for a fact-finding mission with seven other MPs at the end of last month.
01:27But rather than returning with the rest of those MPs, he's stayed out there for a personal trip.
01:32Now, a spokesperson for Liam Byrne says that that part of the private trip is personally funded.
01:37But he is in Japan and there's been a lot of anger, as you can imagine, from residents that they are dealing with a bin crisis
01:44and their local MP has not returned to the area in order to try and push the likes of Birmingham City Council and Unite
01:51to come to some kind of agreement to help out his constituents.
01:54Funny enough, I was in Hodge Hill yesterday.
01:56I got reaction from those residents about how they feel about these bin strikes.
02:00And here's what they told me.
02:01I'm absolutely furious.
02:03This has been going on for many, many weeks now, a couple of months.
02:06I shouldn't have to be, after paying council tax, making my way to empty bins.
02:11And there's a service that's provided to do that.
02:13Well, I think it's disgusting.
02:14It's been going on, well, for a month or so now.
02:17It happened, what, seven, eight years ago.
02:19And the council hasn't learned and the electorate hasn't learned.
02:23It's clearly people elect the same old people who are incompetent
02:26and they don't really care about the local community or the city.
02:29It's all a game plan.
02:30This is just training the public to do it.
02:32They're doing it on purpose.
02:34Slowly, four weeks, two weeks, this week.
02:36This is just training for the future.
02:38What do you make of the state of Birmingham at the moment, the bins on the streets?
02:41It's diabolical, third-world countries are better.
02:45You can hear there a lot of anger from residents just at the state of the streets.
02:49They're finding in residents in Hodge Hill there, part of Liam Byrne's constituency.
02:54And as those concerns continue, those concerns around public health increase as well,
02:59as Unite and the council once again head into negotiations.