Westonians’ frustrations with waste collection services is growing, with many taking to social media to complain about the poor service.

Biffa, North Somerset Council’s waste collection contractor, has been fined more than 550 times by the authority for performance failures, which have seen hundreds of missed pickups since changes to drivers’ rounds were introduced in May.

The problems have not been fully resolved and figures show Biffa has been issued with financial penalties 558 times between September 2017 and August 10 this year.

Many fines are for failing to collect bins, not providing photo evidence of blocked access and repeated missed collections.

A council spokesman said further improvements to waste services were being planned by Biffa and some households will see changes to their collection days in October.

The spokesman said: “In June, after months of planning, around 80 per cent of households saw a change to their collection arrangements, which has worked well for the majority of residents, but has caused issues for some.

“A change of this scale is a massive undertaking and for the vast majority of residents the reroute has gone very well.”

Many people took to social media to share their view.

Phil Weeks said: “I live on the Coronation estate and until the change of collection day I don’t recall our recycling collection ever being missed.

“Now the collection seems to be spread over three days with the same crew returning the following day to complete missed streets. I’ve even seen the truck looking for bins that were emptied the previous day.”

Sara Maynard wrote: “Our recycling is never collected on the correct day anymore, it goes out on a Friday but the last few weeks they haven’t been round till the Saturday.

“I hope it is improved by the winter or our cul-de-sac will be a real mess in the winter as the wind blows recycling around.”

Annmarie Muldoon said: “Normally mine are pretty good but last week they managed to lose one of my recycling bins so I had no option but to put it into one bin. Now they won’t take it and I have so much recycling.”

To join the discussion, visit www.facebook.com/wsmercury or www.twitter.com/wsmercury