TEST Valley Borough Council will be changing the day some residents’ bins are emptied from Monday, 24 February.

The authority will be sending letters to around 16,000 households next week to notify them of a change to their collection day.

With developers building hundreds of new homes across the borough, the council needed to redesign its collection rounds to make sure it could continue to offer the same level of service to existing customers, and accommodate known new housing developments for the next four to five years.

The change does not affect the garden waste collection service.

Councillor Graham Stallard, environmental portfolio holder said: “The authority recently undertook a review of its waste collection rounds to streamline the service and avoid additional costs.

“If we’d have introduced a new round, rather than accommodate known new developments using existing resources, it would have cost the taxpayer an additional £130,000 per year.

“Although it does mean that the day we empty some people’s bins will be changing, it will save a great deal of money over the coming years and help us to keep council tax down.

“We will be writing to those affected from Monday, 10 February, to inform them of their new collection day, so please keep an eye out for any letters from the council that week. If you don’t receive a letter, then your collection day will stay the same.

All residents are reminded to put out their bin by 7am on their collection day, as the time people’s bins are emptied is also likely to change, even if the day they are collected remains the same. The week beginning 24 February is a brown bin week.

The “When are my bins collected?”

search facility on the home page of the council website will be updated to show the new collection days from Saturday, 22 February.

For more information about the changes, please visit testvalley.gov.uk/bincollectionchanges or call the council’s customer services team on 01264 368000 or 01794 527700.