WET weather has been blamed for a bin day backlog.

Householders groaned in despair when, within hours of binmen returning to work after the Christmas break, some refuse wagons were sidelined.

As rubbish piled high from the festive holiday collections had to be postponed.

Borough Engineer John Simm said: "The problems are believed to have occurred as a result of the wetter than usual holiday weather, which meant the running surface at Ince tip was not as firm as usual.

"Damage to the underside of some refuse wagons was reported, making it impossible to use the bin-lifting mechanism.

"The last thing we want in the first week of the New Year, when we remove almost twice as much rubbish as normal, is vehicle breakdown. Unfortunately, this is what happened.

"We are making an effort to catch up."

He said extra refuse bags may be collected even if the vehicle damage meant wheelie bins had to be left.

He added: "We are sorry for any inconvenience and would like to assure those households which have been affected that we are making every effort to rectify the problems."

Meanwhile, refuse collectors have been told they must return wheelie bins to the place from where they collected.

The directive came after the council was indundated with complaints from householders.

In The Avenue area of Leigh some residents claim for months they have had to go on a search tour to find their bins after they have been emptied.

One angry resident said: "Our bins have been emptied all right, but for the past 10 weeks the bins have never been returned to where they were left for collection.

"We've had to go looking for them and not everyone is physically capable of doing that. The bins should be returned to where they were left by residents."

And in the Butts Bridge area one woman reckoned she had complained on 12 occasions about bins not being returned.

"We have to go searching for them before someone takes them," she moaned.

A Council spokesman said: "We have made it quite clear to the refuse collection contractors returning bins is very important.

"We would advise anyone whose bin is not being returned to write to: The Borough Engineer, Civic Buildings, New Market Street, Wigan."

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