SOUTH Hams District Council is believed to be changing some weekly rubbish collections to fortnightly, but town and parish councils have been left unaware.

Households across the district are believed to be affected with the highest concentration being in Kingsbridge, Ivybridge and Dartmouth.

But Kingsbridge Town Clerk Martin Johnson and Kingsbridge Town Councillor Wayne Grills, mayor of Kingsbridge, said ‘we haven’t heard anything about this’.

Dartmouth Town Councillor Sue Thomson said: ‘South Hams Council has given us no warning over this, it has come out of the blue’, after Monday’s meeting of Dartmouth Town Council where the proposals – due to begin in April - were outlined by district councillor Hilary Bastone.

He said he believed the first stage of the review involved moving around 1,600 properties that were previously on a weekly refuse sack collection to a fortnightly refuse bin collection.

A further 3,000 properties that were previously on a weekly sack collection will be moved to a fortnightly refuse sack collection, with an additional weekly food collection, he said.

Cllr Bastone said the intention was to start informing residents over the coming weeks and the actual change over would take place during April.

Read more in the Kingsbridge & Salcombe Gazette