NORTH Herts District Council (NHDC) and Central Beds Council (CBC) both suspended their waste collection services today (Friday). NHDC said snowfall and low temperatures overnight had made paths and roads slippery and difficult to access; collection vehic

NORTH Herts District Council (NHDC) and Central Beds Council (CBC) both suspended their waste collection services today (Friday).

NHDC said snowfall and low temperatures overnight had made paths and roads slippery and difficult to access; collection vehicles are not working fully with bin lifts not working in the cold and roads are gridlocked with parked cars making it difficult for collection vehicles to negotiate roads.

NHDC says the journey to landfill has also been challenging, time consuming and access to the site difficult because of frozen snow.

It is not proposed to resume refuse collections in North Herts until Monday.

Cardboard box collection points are also cancelled today.

CBC said due to the continuing freezing temperatures and with more snow forecast over the weekend it has suspend all waste and recycling bin collections in Central Bedfordshire.

Cllr David McVicar, CBC's portfolio holder for safer and stronger communities, said "Regrettably we are being forced to suspend all waste collection services again today, and it is unlikely we will be able to go out as planned tomorrow to start catching up on the backlog.

"We are advising residents who have not had their bins collected, to leave them out until we are able to catch up when the weather improves.

"We understand that this will cause inconvenience to residents, especially coupled with the disruptions to collections prior to Christmas, but we have to think about both the safety of our crews and residents and in these conditions we just cannot operate any waste collections. We can assure residents we will do everything we can to catch up on collections."

Stevenage Borough Council announced yesterday it had cancelled waste collections until Monday.