Clapham Park has more underground bin pods than its one collection lorry can empty, Lambeth says. What Serco is changing, and who to report a problem to.

Clapham Park now has more underground bin pods than the lorry that empties them can cope with, Lambeth Council says. It has also set out what its contractor Serco is changing.

The admission is in a written answer to a ward councillor, published for the full Council meeting on 14 October (Lambeth Council Questions, question 21).

What the council found

Councillor Verity McGivern, who represents Clapham Park, asked how the council would fix breakdowns, repairs, fly-tipping and missed collections at the pods. She said they are on both Lambeth and MTVH estates in the ward, and called them “the main issue raised by residents in the ward”. More pods are being added.

The Cabinet Member for the environment, Councillor Ciara Alleyne, replied. She said the council ran four weeks of daily inspections. Those found “the number of underground pods had increased beyond the capacity of the dedicated collection vehicle”.

In other words, the estate has grown faster than the specialist lorry’s round. The answer calls the problems “longstanding”.

What is changing

The council says it is taking forward these changes with Serco:

  • Two rounds a day: recycling is collected in the morning and rubbish in the afternoon, to add capacity.
  • Extra collections at the pods that fill fastest.
  • Daily reporting: pod collections are now in Serco’s daily reports, so missed ones should be picked up sooner.
  • A fallback for when the specialist lorry is off the road: extra crews, weekend collections and temporary bulk bins.

The council also says it will keep checking lorry numbers and capacity as new pods are installed. It gives no date for when the service should be reliable.

Who is responsible for what

The answer splits the job between Serco and the estate managers. It names Pinnacle and MTVH (Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing) as partners.

Job Who the council says does it
Scheduled pod collections Serco
Coming back for a missed collection Serco
Clearing waste left by a failed collection Serco
Keeping the area around the pods clean Estate manager
Fly-tipping and bulky waste by the pods Estate manager
Keeping collection points clear for the lorry Estate manager

That split matters when you report a problem. A pod that was not emptied is a council and Serco matter. A sofa dumped beside it is for your landlord or estate manager.

Street bins in Clapham and Stockwell

The same meeting carried a second bins answer for this area. Councillor Patrick O’Donnell said residents and businesses in Clapham and Stockwell were left without litter bins “for seven weeks this summer” (question 28).

Councillor Alleyne said damaged bins were taken away because they could no longer be emptied safely. The replacements had to be fixed to the ground by the council’s Grimebusters team. She said the timing depended on staff being free, “which resulted in a longer interval” between removal and replacement.

New bins have since gone in at “a number of locations” across Clapham and Stockwell, including some in late September, the answer says. The council had announced on 7 August that new bins with a separate recycling slot were going into Brixton first and would come to Clapham “shortly” (Lambeth Council).

What it means for you

If a pod on your block has not been emptied, report it to the council as a missed collection (Lambeth). The council says Serco is responsible for coming back. If the problem is rubbish or furniture dumped around the pod, report it to your landlord or estate manager, as the council says that is their job.

The council’s first community skip events start in November, one in each of the borough’s town centres; we are tracking the locations in our mega-skip story. Your regular collection day is on our Clapham bin collection days page.

Sources