East Devon District Council's recycling boss has apologised after Sidmouth residents have consistently seen collections missed and even the council leader did not get his rubbish collected.

Councillor Geoff Jung, portfolio holder for the environment, said that a shortage of drivers has led to issues with collections in East Devon in the last few weeks, with Budleigh Salterton and Cranbrook the 'big losers'.

Councillor Ben Ingham, leader of the council, said that two weeks ago his rubbish collection on a Friday was missed and he had to wait a whole week for it to be collected.

Wednesday's cabinet meeting had heard that SUEZ had been continually eight drivers short and that existing pay rates mean that drivers were moving across the border to Somserset where they could receive £11.75 per hour rather than £9.94 in East Devon.

A report is set to come to April's cabinet meeting on how to solve the problems of driver retention and the need to increase driver pay in the SUEZ contract, and Councillor Jung told Wednesday's meeting that while there had been issues in recent weeks, they are at present fully on schedule for collections.

Councillor Tom Wright, who sits on the Recycling and Waste Partnership Board, had raised the concerns about the shortage of drivers for Suez and said that the problems were coming a head.

He said: "The last three Fridays in Budleigh, drivers have not turned up for a number of rounds. Sometimes they are collected on Saturday, sometimes on Monday, but what annoys the residents is the lack of information to them. We are failing on one of our major core services."

Councillor Jung said: "I do apologise to the residents having collections not collected on the same day. Fridays have been the big problem with Budleigh Salterton and Cranbrook the big losers. The last three weeks it has been collected on the Saturday and then on the Monday. This week, I can confirm we are back up to schedule and this week we can do all the collections on Friday.

"It is unfortunate that 460 collections were missed, and most were picked up the next day, but that is just two per cent of collections in a week. There is a shortage of drivers as they can get better pay elsewhere, and we will sort that out in April."

John Golding, Strategic Lead Housing, Health and Environment, said that while the pay of SUEZ employees is a matter for them, because it is impacting on East Devon's service, they are having discussions around how we addresses driver pay and a report will come to the cabinet meeting in April.

The meeting heard that SUEZ currently paid £9.94/hour, with the top rate for drivers being £13/hour and £11.50/hour being the market average, but that the SUEZ Somerset contract would pay £11.75 and it was likely that drivers would move across the border.

A revised driver rate of £11.24/hour would result in a £150,000 year increase in costs, but East Devon and SUEZ have indicated that they a 50/50 split on this cost is something they would be satisfied with.

Councillor Paul Hayward said that it wasn't just an issue on Friday's as in his Yarty ward when collections normally take place on a Monday or Tuesday they have experienced the same issues. He said: "This is an issue across the region and an endemic problem."

The cabinet also agreed that continue to trial collection of an additional sack for paper recycling, as currently used in Teignbridge.

A small-scale trial had been undertaken in the Brixington area of Exmouth – 121 properties – with the aim to reduce the level of contamination in paper (from glass and card), increase crew productivity and encourage residents to further separate their recycling and prepare for increasing demand for quality material.

The areas was monitored for six weeks beforehand and six weeks after the sacks were delivered during November and December 2019, with crews on average five minutes quicker with the sack and that 81 per cent of households who presented their recycling also presented the paper sack with an overall participation rate was 92.56 per cent.

The cabinet heard that 22 per cent of properties presented their paper sack but still had paper in the recycling box, and agreed that following on from the small, phase one trial, a larger second phase trial of an additional sack for paper be undertaken in the larger area of Brixington in Exmouth for 647 properties.

The aim of the trial would be see if it reduces the level of contamination in the paper and improves quality to command good prices in a very competitive materials market, encourages residents to recycle more, and is beneficial to the future of the recycling service in East Devon.

The results of the phase two trial be brought back to the Recycling and Waste Partnership Board, who will then make a recommendation to cabinet as to if whether to launch the additional paper sack district wide.