THE leader of Allerdale Council has confirmed that the authority spent more than £20,000 on leaflets in the wake of the bin fiasco.

The authority controversially suspended some recycling services – which have now resumed – after the council’s contractor FCC Environment missed thousands of bin collections.

The council then distributed a leaflet advising residents of the temporary cancellation of the collection of plastic, cans and glass as well as garden waste to 47,307 homes at a cost of £20,305.

Marion Fitzgerald, an Independent councillor for Wigton, also confirmed that the council had footed the entire bill and troubled contractors FCC had not been asked to contribute anything whatsoever to the cost.

The figures emerged as the leader responded to a series of questions from Keswick councillor Markus Campbell-Savours who asked if “a better, cheaper, smarter way ” keeping residents informed had been considered throughout the heavily-debated disruption.

He said: “That’s an awful lot of money to spend on a letter, especially one felt that some people felt was lacking in useful information for them.

“It could have mentioned that there was a waste site at Flusco [near Penrith] instead of just ones at Wigton, Maryport and Workington. None of local residents were aware of this.

“I understand that there may have been some other criticisms about communication, including the need for more detail about the restrictions that they were going to face taking things to [recycling] sites.”

He also suggested that the council could have used digital platforms to save on cost while ensuring those that elderly or vulnerable people who do not use social media could be kept informed in the “traditional way”.

But Mrs Fitzgerald stressed that the letter wasn’t the “only means of communication” used by the council to contact the borough’s residents and that the situation had been an “emergency”.

She said the authority had used “every channel” available to it, including Facebook and the council’s own website.

She added: “During the whole of this episode with the bins we have really worked hard, particularly Charles Holmes [Head of Community Services] and his department, and the customer services team, to make sure that the public had as much information as we could possibly give.”

Allerdale is now exploring how to bring refuse services back in-house.