WIRRAL Council has been forced to suspend this morning's bin collections because icy conditions have made it unsafe to operate collection vehicles.

Although risk assessments concluded that the footways were safe for collection crews, a dry run of collection vehicles has confirmed that road conditions are currently unsuitable to deploy the refuse and recycling fleet.

A spokeswoman for Wirral Council said: "The council's contractor Biffa has been forced to reschedule some bin collections due to a high risk that collection vehicles could lose control on the ice and cause serious damage to property or members of the public.

"We are still advising residents to leave their bins out in case the fleet is able to work later on today, however it is too early to confirm whether this is going to be possible.

"At this point, it is also too early to tell if there will be disruption to tomorrow’s collections.

"As a result of the disruption caused by recent weather, we have had to catch up on some rounds during the week and at weekends.

"The best advice that we can give everyone is to check our website (see related link below) for any updates and make sure that parked cars do not prevent access for collection vehicles, particularly at weekends when more people are at home and we may have to put on extra collections.

"Biffa crews have been working extremely hard to catch up on rescheduled rounds, which have included the removal of additional bags placed beside the green bins.

"We hope that weather conditions will soon improve but in the meantime, we ask our residents to understand that we are providing the best service that we can during very challenging conditions, which are outside of our control."

The council will post regular updates on their website, www.wirral.gov.uk over the next couple of days.

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