Rats are roaming freely with an average of 10 rodents spotted per hour on Birmingham streets as rubbish piles grow larger and residents are now losing patience with the striking workers
Birmingham: Rats spotted running around piles of rubbish
A bin strike is reaching tipping point in Birmingham as residents lose patience with the striking workers and rats are seen roaming the streets freely, The Mirror can reveal.
We visited one of the worst affected areas of the second city today and watched as rats roamed freely through the streets of Small Heath in the shadow of Birminghan City’s storied St Andrews football ground. We witnessed an average of ten rats an hour in the highly populated urban area on the edge of the city centre and saw waste piled high on street corners. In some places rubbish, picked at by animals or dumped by desperate fly-tippers, was strewn everywhere in the rising heat.
Frustrated residents told The Mirror they are longing for an end to the dispute as temperatures rise and are set to be higher than Barcelona by the weekend. Many fear the heat will only worsen the already unhygienic conditions and will see the soaring rat population take further hold. One such disgruntled local was barber Jalaal, 36, who has owned a successful hairdressers in the area for six years.
Cruelty-free hair growth tablets that gives ‘biggest difference in weeks’
He has locked horns with other locals and the beleagured local council many times over the years due to fly-tipping but since the latest strike started he says it has got much worse and that he has been forced to take the matter into his own hands by naming and shaming culprits on social media. Dad Jalaal says he has little choice but does understand how desperate people have become to get rid of their waste. He said: “It has affected my mood, every day I am coming into work and seeing the rubbish, it is digusting.
“It angers me and the worse of it is it makes me think what are we paying council tax for? People need to understand they need to take pride in their community and that there will be consequences if they are fly-tipping. The binmen are essential workers, we have realised this now, surely the people in power need to step in come to some kind of resolution. I get that you want a pay rise and you deserve one, it can’t be that the residents are suffering because you want a pay rise.
“Especially with summer coming now and the heat and the smell and the potential for rat infestations. We shouldn’t be expected to live in a community where we are getting comfortable with rats, not in a civilised, democratic, stable democratic first world country like this. I came in this morning and saw rubbish everywhere and just thought to myself how are we living like this?”
He explained how he has had taken to social media to shame fly-tippers as he loses faith that anybody in power will help the locals clean up their city. He said: “There was another strike a few years ago but it never got to this level. Initially it was OK but from a few black bags it has just got worse and worse .
“Last week there was a mountain there but they cleared it, that was in the Friday and then I have come in the Saturday morning and somebody has dumped rubbish there so I found an addres in it, so I took pictures of it and created a Tik Tok and the views were going through the roof. That evening the guy whose address it was contacted me and said there had been a big misunderstanding and said they paid somebody to get rid of it and they said they would take it to the tip and they have just dumped it there.
“I said OK I don’t know how much I believe you but anyway he asked me to politely take it down but I have pictures of other people’s names aswell. But when I went on to the Birmingham city council website I found out you cannot report invididuals for fly-tipping, just a fly-tipping incident which I thought was crazy.
“Since then it has been piling up and I watched them collect 42 bags and then that night when I was closing the shop I saw a woman from down the road dumping rubbish in the same spot.” On Monday the council declared the bin strike a Major Incident as picket lines picket lines at depots continue to prevfent vehicles collecting waste from all properties once a week, meaning a disgusting 17,000 tonnes of rubbish remains on streets across the city.
Almost 400 council bin workers in Birmingham began indefinite strike action earlier this month as part of an ongoing row over jobs and pay. But it is hoped that by declaring a major incident it allows the council to increase the availability of street cleansing and fly-tipping removal with an extra 35 vehicles and crews around the city.
It also allows the council to explore further support from neighbouring authorities and the Government. Local businessman Abdul Haffiz, 40, who runs a the Priceless hardware store revealed that sales of rat traps have soared by 50 per cent in the last month alone. He and his family have lived in the area all their lives and he explained that while people support the bin men the conditions their strike has created is beginning to change peoples opinions.
He told The Mirror: “A lot of the customers are getting worred about the strikes and are having to buy many more bin bags and rat traps. A lot of people are getting quite stressed now, getting sick and tired of it. They were with the bin men but its getting to the point not where I think it is flipping.
“People think the bin men are maybe not bathing themselves in glory now with some of the things we’ve seen them doing like stepping in front of the trucks and stuff. We appreciate what they are doing, everyone should get paid fairly for the work they do and I wouldn’t want to do their job but come on, you’ve got to work with the community too.
“It is time to come to compromise because people are getting desperate and fed-up, we are still with the bin men, but they need realise how badly it is affecting normal people now. But they are on a fine line now and I think they are reaching a tipping point and burning good will up pretty quickly.”
The Unite union denies its members have been blocking trucks and has also hit back at council leaders for secretly arranging to declare the ‘major incident’ over the bins backlog while privately being engaged in ‘constructive’ talks to end it. The Union said talks between the two sides yesterday had been ‘positive’ for the first time in days and pointed the way to a possible resolution, so it had been a surprise to learn the council had publicly declared an emergency situation.
They argue its members face pay cuts after the scrapping of waste collection and recycling officer roles – but Labour-run Birmingham City Council says its offer is ‘fair and reasonable’. “It felt like an underhand move that union officials weren’t informed about this before it went public,” said a Unite spokesperson.
But he added that the union would continue to negotiate in a positive spirit and hoped to reach a joint resolution. Birmingham City Council has said the ‘escalation’ of industrial action would mean greater disruption to residents despite a ‘fair and reasonable offer’ made to Unite members.
The council also disputes Unite’s claims that 150 workers could lose £8,000 per year in pay. And it has insisted plans to restructure the service were a crucial part of the authority’s efforts to become financially sustainable. In September 2023 the council effectively declared itself bankrupt after facing a £760million equal pay bill and an £80million overspend on an IT project.
The moves have triggered a restructuring aimed at saving £300million over two years. Last month the struggling local authority outlined plans to cut £148million from its budget for this year – with an axe being taken to adult and social care and children and families services.
Councillor John Cotton, leader of Birmingham City Council, said: “It’s regrettable that we have had to take this step, but we cannot tolerate a situation that is causing harm and distress to communities across Birmingham.” Meanwhile, council tax bills for residents of England’s second city are set to rise by 7.5 per cent from next month.
Pest control experts have warned the build-up of refuse caused by a bin collection strike poses a huge public health danger. Unite has warned bin disruption in the city could stretch into the summer after refuse workers voted in favour of extending their strike mandate over the council’s use of temporary labour to ‘undermine’ their industrial action.
A Government spokesperson said: “The waste dispute in Birmingham is causing misery and disruption to residents, and so we are urging for an immediate agreement to be made. It is right that this continues to be a locally-led response, as is usual in the case of council-run services. But we are monitoring the situation closely and will not hesitate to act should the council require additional support.”
