COUNCIL bosses have agreed to pay out hundreds of pounds to fed-up residents over Trafford's controversial bin collection services.

An investigation by the Local Government Ombudsman has upheld six complaints over the authority's much-maligned One Trafford waste partnership with Amey.

And five of the gripes - centring around bins not being returned properly or missed garden and food waste collections - are said to have resulted in injustice to householders.

Town hall chiefs say Amey has now recruited for two key new supervisory positions, to help ensure improvements, and hired more permanent staff to replace agency workers.

The LGO has recommended the council pay out £150 to one couple who had encountered problems over a number of years. And further £100 awards were advised for four other residents over the saga.

The couple, living in flats, had complained after refuse collectors dragged their communal bin 100 yards away and failing to return it, despite repeated complaints.

One disabled resident protested about his bin being consistently left outside his garage, blocking access to his wheelchair.

Another householder claimed she had to chase the council 16 times for her food waste bin to be emptied. An elderly resident, who qualified for assisted collections, was also unhappy as her bin was never left in the right place.

Councillors sitting on the borough's executive have agreed to make the cash payouts and keep the six households' waste services under close review for the next 12 months.

Cllr Stephen Adshead, environment cabinet member, said the authority had been aware of issues with waste collection service for some time had been meeting with Amey to secure improvements.

He told the executive that a new waste operations manager and principal operations manager had been appointed, and the number of supervisors covering the rounds had increased from two to five. Amey had also recruited permanent staff to replace agency workers.

Cllr Nathan Evans, Conservative leader, asked whether, as the council's scrutiny committee was not due to meet until September, monitoring could be undertaken by the authority's pandemic emergency committee.

Cllr Adshead said: "The sooner the better we can do this in my view."

But Cllr Andrew Western, council leader, said the issue would be outside the pandemic committee's remit and could be adequately covered by the scrutiny committee from September.

Councillors were told the LGO had received 18 complaints since April 2019. Six were not considered as they were still being dealt with internally, faults were found in a another three, no faults in two and one was withdrawn, with the six remaining cases being investigated.