COLCHESTER Council has announced plans to get recycling collections back to normal.

Due to staff shortages and social distancing guidelines the authority was forced to stop some collections and make others four-weekly.

However garden waste collections will restart on Monday and special collections for bulky items on June 1.

The temporary four week collections of paper, card, cans, glass and plastics will remain in place until June 19, however after this date, collections will return to normal.

Martin Goss, councillor responsible for waste, environment and transportation, said: “Thank you to everyone for their support with the temporary changes to our recycling and rubbish collections. A phenomenal amount of work has gone on behind the scenes to get our recycling collections back up and running and we’re now confident we have adequate measures in place to allow us to safely restart your full garden waste collection service."

“These unprecedented times have been incredibly challenging for critical services such as the recycling and rubbish collections.

"Going forward we will be taking the lessons learnt from this situation and reviewing our service to ensure that we can deliver an even better service in the borough.”

Council leader Mark Cory added: “We would like to say a huge thank you to all residents for their patience and understanding with the changes to collections during this difficult time.

"We know how tough this current situation is for everyone and I’m delighted that we’re now in a position to restart our garden waste collections in a safe and sustainable way, and I’m sure this news and timetable for restoring services will be welcomed by many.”

The authority plans to set up a temporary drop-off service for garden waste at locations across the borough.

Visit colchester.gov.uk/gardendropoff to find out more or colchester.gov.uk/your-recycling-calendar.