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The Guardian
4 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Death threats and slashed tyres as Brighton's battle of the bins turns toxic
The threat, if not explicit, was thinly veiled. Written in capitals, it had been left on a car parked outside the home of a waste-depot manager. The car's tyres had been slashed. 'Leave the case alone. Brakes next,' it said. 'Nice dogs by the way.' It may sound like a scene from a Sopranos-style mafia drama, but the threat was not made in mob-run New Jersey – the note was left in one of the most liberal, bohemian cities in England, where a battle over who really controls the bins is threatening to spill on to the streets. The threat marks a low point in the decades-long bin saga in Brighton, which flared acrimoniously back into life this week. The story includes death threats, lorry sabotage and slashed tyres, accusations of 'gangsterism' and counter-allegations of union bashing, equal-pay claims and strikes, stashed weapons, police investigations and dropped charges. For Brighton and Hove's 278,000 residents it has also, more mundanely, meant hundreds of missed bin collections. The row between Brighton and Hove council and GMB union, which has a strong presence in the city's main waste depot, resurfaced after a council report revealing a 140% increase in missed collections over the last six months blamed an outdated paper-based system, spending controls and an ageing fleet. But there was something else. The report referred to 'toxic behaviours' by a small coterie at the council's Hollingdean depot, including managers having their tyres slashed, 'ongoing sabotage of council vehicles' and 'intimidatory acts both in the workplace and at managers' homes'. It added: 'A death threat was made as recently as January 2025.' And there were other eye-popping claims made in a letter to staff at the depot this week, seen by the Guardian. 'We have seen video footage of a manager's home being intentionally picked out and stoned by a masked man,' wrote the director of the service. Another employee had been found dealing drugs using council vehicles and phones. A small number of individuals were to blame, said the director, but added: 'It is not isolated. It is coordinated. It must stop.' On Thursday, Sussex police said it was investigating a series of reported offences from 2023 to 2025, including criminal damage, possession of offensive weapons, harassment and arson. Some investigations had concluded other offences were continuing or at an early stage. Ch Supt Rachel Carr said the reports were 'of a very serious and concerning nature'. In a post on X, GMB's Sussex branch condemned 'any action that would harm the health and safety of our members and to the public', adding: 'All our members want to do is to empty bins and keep the streets clean for the residents of the city of Brighton and Hove.' So, what exactly is going on in Brighton? In a small, strip-lit office in the council's unlovely 1970s Brighton and Hove town hall, Bella Sankey, the council leader, has an air of steely pugilism. 'It's fair to say that there has been dysfunction and malpractice in our waste collection service over several decades,' she says. 'What's also clear is it is possible for the service to run really effectively.' Asked if there is a battle happening here on the south coast, she replies: 'I think that's an accurate description. To me, it feels like a mission.' When Sankey became the first Labour majority leader in 2023, she was presented with 18 whistleblower accounts from the Hollingdean depot. Six months later, Aileen McColgan KC, whom she commissioned to investigate, published an explosive report. More than 70 witnesses gave 'appalling accounts' of a 'toxic' workplace where shouting, threats of violence, and sexual and racial harassment were endemic. Managers said they were called, among other things, 'a bunch of wankers' and 'effing cunts' and subject to threats of stabbing. Those accused were either GMB reps or among 'a group of around 10 white men' protected by them. The report sparked a search of GMB's office at the depot, where a stash of weapons, including nunchucks, baseball bats, knives and a samurai sword were found. Managers told McColgan that 'everything' had to be run by the union to avert strike threats and that politicians who had received GMB funding sat on appeal panels and would 'unashamedly just reverse' decisions to dismiss GMB members who had been sacked for misconduct. McColgan found that managers and the council had been 'unable to respond appropriately to the behaviour [because] of the threat of industrial action and a (reasonably) anticipated absence of political support'. Politicians are now barred from dealing with appeals, says Sankey. Council leaders meet regularly with both GMB and Unison, another union with a presence in the depot. On a less significant but perhaps telling note, GMB union reps are no longer entitled to their own office or a parking space at the depot. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion When the McColgan report was published, GMB, whose general secretary, Gary Smith, cut his teeth as an organiser in Brighton, said the behaviours and language described in the report were 'unacceptable' and that the union was investigating and would face down 'discrimination and bad behaviour'. But GMB argued that the report contained unsupported statements, failed 'the basic test of fairness' and lacked the voices of those accused of misconduct. Some of those who worked at Hollingdean say they are still suffering the consequences of that period. 'It was horrific, like working in a minefield,' says Eleanor*, a former waste operative. After making a complaint, she says she was harassed to the point that she felt scared to leave her house and finally left her job and relocated. 'I was suicidal at one point, I wanted to walk into the sea,' she says. Ella*, a former manager at the Hollingdean depot, says part of her is still broken. 'It led me to leave my career utterly burned out and afraid,' she says. Since the publication of the McColgan report more than 40 people have left the service and missed collections were down by 90% in the four months after its publication – before the recent spike. Despite improvements at the depot, a small group are still using 'bully boy' tactics, says Sankey. She says that some instances of vehicle sabotage occurred after a now deleted post by the GMB Brighton Sussex branch in February last year, which warned that 'chaos is set to hit the city of Brighton'. At the time, GMB said the deleted tweets were under investigation, with a spokesperson adding: 'We wish to reassure the people of Brighton that this tweet does not reflect the views of the GMB union.' Sankey says she has had no response to a request for the results of that investigation. 'If by chaos that tweet meant putting staff lives at risk, then that is gangsterism, not trade unionism,' she says. GMB's regional secretary, Gavin Davies, says Sankey's comments are 'inflamatory', 'unhelpful', 'extremely disappointing' and 'very poorly timed'. Refuse workers need unions, he argues: 'They carry out a hard, dirty, dangerous job that we all rely on.' The union wants to 'forge a positive working relationship' with the council, he insists, but it is failing to engage with a multimillion-pound equal pay claim the union lodged last August. 'It's frustrating our attempts to work with the council on issues such as equal pay keep falling on deaf ears,' he says. Sankey is adamant that she is a full-throated trade unionist – she was a member of GMB but left after the McColgan report was published – and says the council will always look at claims and seek to work with recognised unions to resolve them. 'I'm a massive believer in the power of unions to protect the human rights and dignity of people at work,' she says. 'But unions are supposed to provide checks and balances and prevent abuses of power. They have to deal with people who abuse power and undermine the dignity and the safety of workers.' The last 18 months have been bumpy, she says, but she is determined to carry on. 'I will not stop until my staff are safe and our residents can rely on regular collections,' she says. Asked who will win the battle of the bins in Brighton, she doesn't hesitate: 'I will.' * Names have been changed.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
The secret war waged by Brighton's ‘insurgent' bin men
Slashed tyres, death threats and a cache of weapons. It sounds like the opening scene of a gangland crime thriller – but it is actually part of a decades-long war over Brighton's bins. The row has boiled over in the last 18 months, with council bosses accusing a group of insurgent refuse workers of 'bully boy tactics' in a 'toxic' environment in which they claim culprits are protected by the GMB union. Vehicles at the Brighton and Hove city council-run waste disposal site have been repeatedly 'sabotaged', according to a May 15 council report, with the council claiming wires were cut on at least two. It's a plot reminiscent of the Sopranos, in which the fictional mob boss Tony Soprano runs a waste management business as a cover for his mafia earnings. The chaos has left locals with no idea whether their waste will be taken, with haphazard collections leaving weeks of rubbish piling up. When The Telegraph visited the coastal East Sussex city in May, six weeks' worth of discarded bottles and four weeks' worth of recycling had been left untouched. In one troubled area, Patcham, resident John Ellis, 65, said problems with collections had been 'on and off over the last 15 years'. Gesturing to a pile of rubbish outside his front door, he said: 'The collections, especially for recycling, are really poor, and it's quite dangerous because we have glass bottles out on the streets as well. 'If you go further into the city, there's a real problem, because the seagulls will come down, especially if it's a plastic bin bag, and hack the bags open to find any food that's left over… it makes a real mess. We're all paying our council tax, of course.' This month, the council blamed a missed collection in Patcham on 'a problem with the vehicle'. It was not confirmed whether the lorry was the target of sabotage. Across Brighton, the number of missed bin collections more than doubled from 573 to 1,369 between December 2024 and April 2025. Meanwhile, the Labour-run council has announced a 4.99 per cent rise in council tax bills this year – the maximum increase allowed without a referendum. It would take take the average band D council tax bill to £2,455, more than £200 a month higher than the previous year. The latest round of delayed collections followed years of disorder at the bin depot. A cache of knives, nunchucks, baseball bats and a samurai sword was found in 2023 at the Hollingdean bin depot in the north of the city, inside an office. A subsequent three-month investigation ordered by the council, and carried out by Aileen McColgan KC, found instances of bullying, intimidation, racism, sexism and homophobia across the site. One witness said the environment was 'like Animal Farm', George Orwell's 1945 satirical novella featuring farm animals revolting against their farmer owner. And the investigation alleged many problems at the depot stemmed from the trade union members' 'pecking order'. The longest-serving lorry drivers were at the 'top table', and therefore protected by the union, while others were left to fend for themselves, witnesses claimed. Some members threatened to stab other binmen, and brought weapons into the depot to show them to staff, while others sexually harassed female staff and managers, the 2023 report claimed. In the wake of the investigation, 40 workers left the depot. Since then, council bosses have invested nearly a million pounds, along with £3.875 million into a new food waste collection. In a rebrand, it changed its name from 'City Clean' to 'Environmental Services'. Yet two years later, council bosses have reported more acts of sabotage – including the slashing of disciplinary managers' tyres, alongside 'ongoing intimidatory acts both in the workplace and at managers' homes'. A death threat was made against a manager at the site as recently as January this year. Staff members are still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the report published in May this year. It added: 'The council is determined to deliver a waste collection service that the city can be proud of and is taking actions in all areas of the service to address deep-rooted issues that have existed for many decades.' At the beginning of this month, council leader Bella Sankey claimed the reason for missed bin collections across Brighton was ongoing insurgence at the depot. She said: 'We will not be held to ransom any more in this city by this small group of individuals. We are on it, we are working with the police, there are investigations going on. They know who they are and they're not going to get away with it any longer.' She told The Telegraph the 2023 insurgents were 'either GMB Sussex branch reps, or said to have been protected by GMB Sussex branch reps within the council'. Of the latest report, she added: 'Over the last 18 months, as we have continued taking the necessary action to change this culture, we have seen direct sabotage of vehicles, threats to life, intimidation and a continuation of the same bully boy tactics. This includes a depot manager's car tyres being slashed.' Gavin Davies, GMB regional secretary, told The Telegraph: 'It's GMB's view that council leaders are seeking to blame a two-year-old report for failures in service rollout, which have worsened since the report, not improved.' He added that the blame 'needs to lie with the council leadership'. He said a key issue was the 'millions owed to women employees who have been systematically underpaid over many years', adding: 'It's frustrating our attempts to work with the council on issues such as equal pay keep falling on deaf ears.' Now many locals are losing patience. Outside 62-year-old Alastair Kerr's home, a month's worth of rubbish awaited collection when The Telegraph visited on May 19. 'When all of us are paying increasing amounts of council tax, it does feel a bit like a kick in the teeth to leave you without any explanation or even an apology,' said the actor, who has lived in Brighton since 2008. 'The council is not easy to communicate with, and you feel like you've been kept at arm's length.' Peter Goodman, 78, a resident in north Brighton whose recycling has remained uncollected for more than a month, has looked out of his window at an overflowing black bin and a pile of boxes each morning. 'If it gets beyond this, I may actually have to take some over to the tip myself,' he said. Allister McNair, a conservative councillor for Patcham and Hollingbury, blamed Labour for the problems. 'It doesn't seem to be getting better – the problem seems to be coming back,' he told The Telegraph. Accusing council bosses of 'taking their eye off the ball', he asked: 'When's the end in sight?' Mark Earthey, an independent councillor for Rottingdean and West Saltdean, said roads in his ward were sometimes missed for eight weeks at a time. 'I have residents who are partially sighted, or have mobility issues. They've been falling over rubbish and uncollected bins,' he said. 'People can't even get in and out of their own homes because of bins in the road or pathways. It's been total meltdown.' Sussex Police confirmed it was investigating a series of reported offences linked to a Brighton and Hove council depot in Hollingdean. A spokesman said the reported offences, which span a period from 2023 to 2025, included criminal damage, possession of offensive weapons, harassment, arson, and further serious offences. All the incidents reported to Sussex Police remain under continual review and were forming part of a wider investigation that remains ongoing, he added.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The secret war being waged by Brighton's ‘insurgent' bin men
Slashed tyres, death threats and a cache of weapons. It sounds like the opening scene of a gangland crime thriller – but it is actually part of a decades-long war over Brighton's bins. The row has boiled over in the last 18 months, with council bosses accusing a group of insurgent refuse workers of 'bully boy tactics' in a 'toxic' environment in which they claim culprits are protected by the GMB union. Vehicles at the Brighton and Hove city council-run waste disposal site have been repeatedly 'sabotaged', according to a May 15 council report, with the council claiming wires were cut on at least two. It's a plot reminiscent of the Sopranos, in which the fictional mob boss Tony Soprano runs a waste management business as a cover for his mafia earnings. The chaos has left locals with no idea whether their waste will be taken, with haphazard collections leaving weeks of rubbish piling up. When The Telegraph visited the coastal East Sussex city in May, six weeks worth of discarded bottles and four worth of recycling had been left untouched. In one troubled area, Patcham, resident John Ellis, 65, said problems with collections had been 'on and off over the last 15 years'. Gesturing to a pile of rubbish outside his front door, he said: 'The collections, especially for recycling, are really poor, and it's quite dangerous because we have glass bottles out on the streets as well. 'If you go further into the city, there's a real problem, because the seagulls will come down, especially if it's a plastic bin bag, and hack the bags open to find any food that's left over… it makes a real mess. We're all paying our council tax, of course.' Across Brighton, the number of missed bin collections more than doubled from 573 to 1,369 between December 2024 and April 2025, rising by 140 per cent over the past six months. Rubbish is meant to be collected every Wednesday for residents in Patcham, with recycling picked up every second Thursday. This month, the council blamed a missed collection on 'a problem with the vehicle'. A spokesman added: 'This meant that they were delayed and unable to complete the round.' It was not confirmed whether the lorry was the target of sabotage. Meanwhile, the Labour-run council has announced a 4.99 per cent rise in council tax bills this year – the maximum increase allowed without a referendum. It would take take the average band D council tax bill to £2,455, more than £200 a month higher than the previous year. The latest round of delayed collections followed years of disorder at the bin depot. A cache of knives, nunchucks, baseball bats and a samurai sword was found in 2023 at the Hollingdean bin depot in the north of the city, inside an office. A subsequent three-month investigation ordered by the council, and carried out by Aileen McColgan KC, found instances of bullying, intimidation, racism, sexism and homophobia across the site. One witness said the environment was 'like Animal Farm', George Orwell's 1945 satirical novella featuring farm animals revolting against their farmer owner. And the investigation alleged many problems at the depot stemmed from the trade union members' 'pecking order'. The longest-serving lorry drivers were at the 'top table', and therefore protected by the union, while others were left to fend for themselves, witnesses claimed. Some members threatened to stab other binmen, and brought weapons into the depot to show them to staff, while others sexually harassed female staff and managers, the 2023 report claimed. In the wake of the investigation, 40 workers left the depot. Since then, council bosses have invested nearly a million pounds, along with £3.875 million into a new food waste collection. In a rebrand, it changed its name from 'City Clean' to 'Environmental Services'. Yet two years later, council bosses have reported more acts of sabotage – including the slashing of disciplinary managers' tyres, alongside 'ongoing intimidatory acts both in the workplace and at managers' homes'. A death threat was made against a manager at the site as recently as January this year. Staff members are still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the report published in May this year. It added: 'The council is determined to deliver a waste collection service that the city can be proud of and is taking actions in all areas of the service to address deep-rooted issues that have existed for many decades.' At the beginning of this month, council leader Bella Sankey claimed the reason for missed bin collections across Brighton was ongoing insurgence at the depot. She said: 'We will not be held to ransom any more in this city by this small group of individuals. We are on it, we are working with the police, there are investigations going on. They know who they are and they're not going to get away with it any longer.' She told The Telegraph the 2023 insurgents were 'either GMB Sussex branch reps, or said to have been protected by GMB Sussex branch reps within the council'. Of the latest report, she added: 'Over the last 18 months, as we have continued taking the necessary action to change this culture, we have seen direct sabotage of vehicles, threats to life, intimidation and a continuation of the same bully boy tactics. This includes a depot manager's car tyres being slashed.' Gavin Davies, GMB regional secretary, told The Telegraph: 'It's GMB's view that council leaders are seeking to blame a two-year-old report for failures in service rollout, which have worsened since the report, not improved.' He added that the blame 'needs to lie with the council leadership'. He said a key issue was the 'millions owed to women employees who have been systematically underpaid over many years', adding: 'It's frustrating our attempts to work with the council on issues such as equal pay keep falling on deaf ears.' Now many locals are losing patience. Outside 62-year-old Alastair Kerr's home, a month's worth of rubbish awaited collection when The Telegraph visited on May 19. 'When all of us are paying increasing amounts of council tax, it does feel a bit like a kick in the teeth to leave you without any explanation or even an apology,' said the actor, who has lived in Brighton since 2008. 'The council is not easy to communicate with, and you feel like you've been kept at arm's length.' Peter Goodman, 78, a resident in north Brighton whose recycling has remained uncollected for more than a month, has looked out of his window at an overflowing black bin and a pile of boxes each morning. 'If it gets beyond this, I may actually have to take some over to the tip myself,' he said. Allister McNair, a conservative councillor for Patcham and Hollingbury, blamed Labour for the problems. 'It doesn't seem to be getting better – the problem seems to be coming back,' he told The Telegraph. Accusing council bosses of 'taking their eye off the ball', he asked: 'When's the end in sight?' Mark Earthey, an independent councillor for Rottingdean and West Saltdean, said roads in his ward were sometimes missed for eight weeks at a time. 'I have residents who are partially sighted, or have mobility issues. They've been falling over rubbish and uncollected bins,' he said. 'People can't even get in and out of their own homes because of bins in the road or pathways. It's been total meltdown.' Sussex Police confirmed it was investigating a series of reported offences linked to a Brighton and Hove council depot in Hollingdean. A spokesman said the reported offences, which span a period from 2023 to 2025, included criminal damage, possession of offensive weapons, harassment, arson, and further serious offences. All the incidents reported to Sussex Police remain under continual review and were forming part of a wider investigation that remains ongoing, he added. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
BBC News
5 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Barnsley Council scraps £31 charge for replacement bins
Barnsley Council has approved the abolition of a £31 charge for replacement recycling move is part of a wider £2.3m investment into modernising waste and recycling services across the decision was made at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday and means that residents will be able to request new or replacement bins free of charge, in a bid to remove financial barriers to council will allocate £500,000 in capital funding to support the initiative, which is expected to benefit up to 20,000 households during the forthcoming financial year. The policy change is also expected to reduce complaints related to waste bins and increase household recycling rates across Barnsley, according to the Local Democracy Reporting addition to the bin replacement scheme, the council's cabinet also approved £1.8 million in revenue funding to continue its waste safety and quality programme, first introduced in 2024. Planned improvements include investment in in-cab vehicle technology, enhanced crew training, and additional seasonal staffing to manage high-demand periods. These measures aim to reduce missed collections and improve service resilience, especially during winter the 2024/25 winter period, more than 100,000 collections were missed due to severe snow and ice. 'Inconvenience' Councillor Kevin Osborne, cabinet support member for environment and highways, said: "The service wholeheartedly acknowledges that the disruption to collections and inconvenience to residents and members throughout the year has been significant and does fall short of the quality of service that we endeavour to deliver."He added: "The challenge now is how to maintain our service levels and safety standards."Osborne said that almost twice as many people lost their lives in the waste industry, when compared to the construction added: "Our programme is there to ensure that every member of staff goes home to their families at the end of every day, and that the public are kept safe around the collection crews as they work."Of course, as with any large-scale change programme with new working practices, there is bound to be an impact on productivity. "That is no less the case with this programme. Our frontline management are working with collection crews to address any issues that do arise and ensure that the safety-and-quality programme is fully embedded." Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North
BBC News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
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People Fixing the World May 27, 2025 23 minutes Available for over a year What do you do with your waste if you live somewhere that doesn't have the infrastructure to deal with it? Turns out there are some really simple solutions. Presenter Myra Anubi is in Malawi where she meets the cafe owner in the capital Lilongwe who has set up a recycling hub as well as the women making valuable compost from food scraps and animal dung. Plus Myra visits the Kibébé workshop in the Dzaleka refugee camp where refugees are finding employment and meaning by turning used materials into clothing and toys. People Fixing The World from the BBC is about brilliant solutions to the world's problems. We'd love you to let us know what you think and to hear about your own solutions. You can contact us on WhatsApp by messaging +44 8000 321721 or email peoplefixingtheworld@ And please leave us a review on your chosen podcast provider. Presenter: Myra Anubi Producer: Richard Kenny Malawi producer: Marie Segula Editor: Jon Bithrey Sound mix: Hal Haines (Image:Norah Baziwell and her team of compost makers in Lilongwe, BBC)
