DASH cams could be fitted to bin lorries in Wrexham in a bid to reduce the number of complaints about missed bin collections.

The idea was mooted by the leader of Wrexham Council as politicians debated the latest complaint figures, which show waste collections are the number one issue raised by residents.

In total the authority received 356 formal and informal complaints between April and October 2018, which included 227 about bin services.

Speaking at the town’s Guildhall, Cllr Mark Pritchard (Ind) said the cameras would enable the authority to gather evidence on who was to blame for missed containers.

He said: “If we invested in dash cams, then as the refuse collectors go round it’s there as evidence-based.

“If you had the technology, and we touched on embracing new technology earlier, then this is the way forward.

“If we’ve got evidence that the resident didn’t put their bin out there, then it’s their fault or if we didn’t collect it then it’s our issue.

“The sooner they put new technology in our bin lorries the better.”

Members of the council’s customers, performance, resources and governance scrutiny committee also questioned the process used to register complaints.

At present if a bin is missed once then it is only raised as an informal complaint.

Residents’ concerns are only escalated to formal level if they are missed three times or more.

Labour group leader Dana Davies said she felt a formal complaint should be raised on the first occasion in order to prevent further problems.

She said: “Shouldn’t we be prioritising this because there’s a cost here and that cost is impacting on the environment department’s budget.”

Cllr Davies added:  “The additional costs are two-fold because we’re missing bins three times before recording a formal complaint.”

In a report Cllr David Kelly (Ind),  the authority’s lead member for planning and corporate resources, said the percentage of complaints about missed collections had reduced from the same period last year.

Cllr Kelly said: “The general process for an issue regarding failed waste collections to reach the formal stage of the complaints procedure is for a customer to have reported three failed missed collections within a six month period with the contact centre.

“At that point, the matter is referred to the complaints team to log as an initial informal complaint and ask the relevant team to address this.

“Should the problems then remain, i.e. the missed collections continue to occur, the matter is then escalated for a formal complaint investigation by the complaints team.”

The committee voted to receive a further report on how complaints are escalated in March to consider whether the process should be changed.