A PENSIONER has criticised the council after her bin went uncollected for a week.

Jean Crawford normally puts her rubbish out on a Thursday. She leaves her bin next to two others belonging to her neighbours.

But last week only one of the three was collected, with no explanation as to why she and her neighbour had been missed out.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Jean, 83, of Windrush Road.

“We can’t understand why all the other 32 bungalows had their bins collected but they missed ours.”

Swindon Borough Council was notified of the error and Jean was told that waste crews would return the following day to put the situation right.

“It’s happened before,” she said. “But then we’ve had them come the next day.”

But this time Friday came and went without the bin men returning. Then Saturday, and then Sunday, and beyond.

“I called each day,” said Jean. “And my neighbour called, we’ve both contacted them. But there’s always an excuse.

“Either they’re short of drivers, or they’re short of vans. They’ve got a lot of excuses.

“They say they’re sorry, but that doesn’t do us any good.”

To make matters worse, a dead rat appeared next to Jean’s bin as she waited for the council to get round to sending a crew to collect it.

When someone decided to put the rat in her bin, things only went further downhill.

She said: “The smell is just awful. The bin is now running alive with maggots and flies. It’s horrible.”

As the situation worsened, and with the days passing with no action, Jean again contacted the council’s customer service line.

She explained that the presence of the rat had led to the arrival of an infestation but still no bin men came.

As of Thursday morning, Jean was still waiting for her rubbish to be collected.

A spokesman for Swindon Borough Council said: “We are looking into why Mrs Crawford’s bins were not collected.

“Arrangements have been made to collect her refuse as soon as possible.”

Earlier this week, a report by the Local Government Ombudsman revealed a rise in unsatisfied residents reporting missed collections around the country.

The ombudsman upheld 81 per cent of its complaint investigations into council waste and recycling services last year - up 59 per cent from the year before.

Common problems included repeated missed collections, poor complaint handling and issues with assisted collections for those with disabilities or mobility problems.

Michael King, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “Many thousands of bins are collected successfully every day in England.

“But the complaints we investigate tell the story of real public experiences. No matter how trivial it may seem, people are right to expect councils to take their concerns seriously.

“When things go wrong, it’s how councils put them right that really matters.”