A Council help-line has been swamped by thousands of calls about rubbish collections since the controversial new wheelie-bin system was brought in.

And complaints about council house repairs have also come flooding in to Council offices.

A "warts and all" report on what people said about their services will go to the Performance Review Sub Committee next Thursday.

Chairman Councillor Andy Mudd said it was the first time a dossier of that type had been prepared.

He said: "Listening to the problems people have is important if we are to learn from mistakes and make improvements to systems or services.

"Even one complaint about a service can be enough to ensure we change the way we do things."

Officers will tell the sub-committee that the Council customer contact line dealt with 18,631 calls about refuse collection.

There were 1,311 about street sweeping and 184 calls about grass cutting and clearing weeds during the year ending in April.

But the officers say many of the refuse calls were inquiries about the wheelie bin system and requests for sweeping and grass cutting to be done, rather than complaints.

The report says there were 1,751 actual complaints with Council house repairs topping the list.

Complaints about buildings and facilities, mainly theatres and sports centres, came second and general complaints about customer staff came third.

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