One of the last bastions of weekly bin collecting in Norfolk has hit back at national news reports that it was no longer offering weekly waste collections.

One of the last bastions of weekly bin collecting in Norfolk has hit back at national news reports that it was no longer offering weekly waste collections.

West Norfolk Council has defended its service of weekly household waste collecting after critical reports in national newspapers that it was among 144 local authorities in the country to change their bin collecting to fortnightly.

In fact, it still collects general waste every week, unlike almost every other authority in the county.

Yarmouth, Fenland, North Norfolk, Breckland and South Norfolk now only offer fortnightly general refuse collection, with recyclable rubbish being collected on the alternate weeks.

In Breckland, there is also a brown bin collection for garden waste which people can order but have to pay for.

Norwich City Council has weekly refuse collection but it is looking to change that to fortnightly.

The confusion came after the publication of a list by government minister Ben Bradshaw of all those local authorities that operate a fortnightly collection for waste - recycling one week, general waste the next.

West Norfolk Council has now said it is going to contact the minister to clear up the problem.

Ashford in Kent, Dudley, East Cambridgeshire, Mendip and Rochford have also said they still have weekly collections, despite being on the list.

Sharon Clifton, spokesman for the council, said: "We will be contacting the minister concerned asking for this inaccuracy to be corrected, but in the meantime would like to reassure our residents that there are no plans to change our existing waste collection arrangements.

"The arrangements we have in place comprise the weekly collection of residual domestic waste and the fortnightly collection of recyclable waste."

And there was no plan to make any change to that arrangement, she said, but added that West Norfolk's bins were smaller than most of the other local authorities at 130 litres, whereas others had bins of about 240 litres.

A Waveney District Council spokesman said: "We do alternate- week collections between waste and recycled rubbish. This encourages people to recycle and it has obviously worked because we are the seventh best recycling authority in the country."

The spokesman for West Norfolk said that since the introduction of the large green wheeled bins and brown bins for composting, recycling rates in the borough had continued to rise and that in the last year 29.5pc of waste was recycled.

In the last quarter, rates were up to 35pc, she said, which compared well with authorities operating the fortnightly collections.