A LEADING opposition councillor has blasted a ‘no show’ Allerdale executive for failing to attend an important members’ briefing about their proposed solution to the borough’s bins fiasco.

Alan Smith, of the Labour Group, insisted that the administration should all have been there to face questions over their plans to bring the authority’s troubled bin service ‘in house’.

But instead councillors received an update from Charles Holmes, head of community services, with no members of the Independent-led executive present at the start of the meeting – though council leader Marion Fitzgerald did arrive later.

Their absence has sparked claims from Mr Smith that the administration is either “scared” to face questions or simply could “not be bothered” to turn up.

The briefing had been set up to inform councillors of the decision taken by the executive on Monday which had been taken behind closed doors for commercial reasons.

Mr Smith said: “The briefing was delivered by an officer with no executive members present and no council leader. This is very unusual and alarming. It is undemocratic and totally inappropriate to have a senior officer deliver a critical message like this.

“I have written to the leader this morning expressing my concerns. It is unbelievable to have a senior officer delivering a political message on behalf of an executive who weren’t there: it’s appalling.

“We [the Labour Group] would never do anything like this. This is a decision that is going to have far-reaching implications for the taxpayers and residents of the borough and they couldn’t even be bothered to turn up to the briefing. Either they are scared or they can’t be bothered to turn up.”

He said that Charles Holmes was on the “operational” side but that this was a political decision – and that members of the executive including the leader and the portfolio-holder should therefore have attended.

Waste services in the borough have been carried out by contractors FCC Environment since 1997. But after a new arrangement came into force in April, issues with the service meant that crews had been unable to complete rounds on the scheduled days.

The new executive took the decision to temporarily suspend some of the now-resumed recycling services until the issues could be resolved.

Responding to Coun Smith’s concerns, Mrs Fitzgerald told him she had been unable to attend the start of the briefing because she had to attend a “feedback session” with her peer review team.

She described this as “an important part” of the leader’s duty and said that she had joined the meeting as soon as she was able to.

Mrs Fitzgerald, who pledged to attend the full session on Thursday, said she was “confident” that the head of service would have been “able to fully explain” how the preferred option would be implemented.

It is understood that no information sessions to update councillors were held under the previous administration.