THERE are just seven days to go until the biggest-ever overhaul of bin collections in Bolton.

From next Monday, around 93,000 houses in the borough will have a new collection day, with all 35 of the town’s collection crews concentrated in one “zone” on any given day.

But binmen say they fear the changes — a bid to cut mileage and slash the £400,000 per year fuel bill — will make their jobs impossible.

One concerned worker, who did not want to be named, said staff were worried the new rounds would take hours longer to complete.

He said: “We genuinely fear that we will still be out at midnight or 1am collecting rubbish because the new rounds are so unrealistic. The council will have to bring agency staff in at weekends to collect what can’t be done by us and that will cost the council a lot more than it saves them in fuel.

“If they don’t get the agency staff in, the streets will just be full of rubbish and people will want to know why their bins haven’t been collected.”

Town hall chiefs refute the claims and say the majority of staff voted in favour of the changes in February.

A spokesman said: “One of the aims of the modernisation was to make the workload of all waste collection staff more balanced, as some staff were finishing rounds much earlier than others, due to imbalances in the size of rounds, amount to be collected and distance from the waste depot.

“Waste collection staff and unions have been consulted at all stages of the modernisation implementation programme. After the initial round redesigns were produced, more than 30 staff representing each of the rounds were asked to provide their feedback on the proposals and whether the rounds were physically possible to complete in the time.

“Staff highlighted routes which were a concern, made suggestions and amendments were made to the routes as a result.”

Union chiefs say that staff are apprehensive about the changes.

Paul Hutchinson, GMB convener for Bolton Council staff, said: “There will be some problems to overcome. We have just asked the men to do the best.”

One binman claimed workers had turned on bosses from the GMB which represents them. He said: “There are concerns that the union is not putting our arguments forward to the council and a lot of men are running out of patience.”

But Mr Hutchinson dismissed the reports and revealed he had challenged workers at a meeting on Friday to step forward if they had any problems. He said: “No one came forward so I can only think that they were either not at the meeting or not willing to make their feelings known through the proper channels.”