Southampton is buried beneath about one million bin bags that could take weeks to clear, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Strikes At A Glance
• 60 street cleaners on strike until July 18
• 40 parking wardens on strike from July 11
• 120 refuse collectors on strike from July 11
• 20 Itchen Bridge staff on strike from July 11
• 80 librarians on strike from July 11
• 20 children’s workers from July 11
• 13 port health workers on strike from July 11
• 15 vehicle mechanics on strike from July 11
• 230 building maintenance workers on July 13
•Hundreds of council workers will march through the city to a rally at the council on Wednesday, July 13

Council bosses yesterday brought in more paid contractors to begin clearing the massive backlog of festering waste that one leading councillor said left the city looking like a Third World refugee camp.

And the council is considering taking up offers of help from residents to set up a volunteer army of litter pickers.

The latest revelations come as unions accused the council of calling off secretly planned last-ditch talks to end the industrial action that has caused the mess.

The council’s chief executive admitted that talks through mediation service ACAS were “tentatively scheduled”

for yesterday afternoon, but insisted that they were not confirmed and that no further meetings were needed for a final pay cut offer to be accepted.

Union leaders reacted with disbelief and vowed to press ahead with a massive wave of strikes next week – the largest yet – which will involve more than 600 workers.

Striking bin men returned to their rounds on Tuesday after rows over working alongside agency staff.

The council’s waste chief Andrew Trayer said that in a normal week about 1,400 tonnes of waste would be collected, but the strike had resulted in the need to collect hundreds of additional tonnes.

With each black bin bag typically weighing a couple of kilos, it means that there could be about one million lying uncollected – some 2,000 tonnes.

Mr Trayer said that it would take “two to three weeks” to clear the backlog.

About two-thirds of the waste is now bagged by the side of wheelie bins.

Hired help may now be stepped up to six or seven trucks by the weekend in what Mr Trayer called a “proactive rather than reactive” effort.

The number of hired trucks on the road increased from two to four yesterday as the risk of fire hazards grew and the council has been deluged with complaints about possible health risks.

Managed blocks of flats, community centres and nursing homes are paying for private collections.

But waste bosses revealed that many firms had refused to work for the council for fear of damaging relations with unions and clients.

Council leader Councillor Royston Smith said that it was considering written requests from volunteers to help the clear-up.

Cllr Smith insisted that the controversial pay cuts would protect 400 jobs and revealed that the council faces an even bigger budget black hole than feared after more staff than anticipated volunteered for costly redundancies, and inflation pushed up forecast costs.

He said that the council now needs to save more than £75m over the next four years – £10m more than forecast – and that any loss in savings would increase pressure to cut jobs and services.

Up to 2,400 Unite and Unison union members at the council are in the seventh week of industrial action over proposed cuts to pay and conditions.

Council staff have been threatened with dismissal if they don’t sign up to new contracts coming in on Monday.

Two-and-a-half days of ACAS talks collapsed in stalemate two weeks ago, despite a final offer from the council to remove half of its staff – those earning under £22,000, including bin men – from proposed pay cuts of between two and 5.5 per cent.

Unions claim that the offer still amounted to a pay cut for most of these lower paid workers because it ignored a freeze on annual pay rises and cuts in mileage rates from 54p to 45p. This is worth hundreds of pounds each year to some council workers.

The offer was rejected as “not going far enough” at a meeting of about 500 members of the unions earlier this week.

Union leaders yesterday said they had told ACAS that they would now talk with the council without pre-conditions.

They had earlier insisted that dismissal notices be withdrawn for strikes to be halted, and negotiations to reopen.

Cllr Smith said that a further meeting with the unions and ACAS was considered but had not been arranged and the final offer remained on the table.

“We do not need a meeting to discuss this offer but would happily meet to talk about implementing our proposal,”

he said.

Unison regional organiser Andy Straker said: “This demonstrates that Southampton City Council never wanted to negotiate.

“With rubbish piling up on the streets and further strike action due to take place from Monday, all the council chief executive and leader can do is sit in their offices and sulk.

“This city needs leadership from its civic officers and all it gets is silly games from grown men acting like silly boys.”

Unite regional organiser Ian Woodland said: “For all those residents who have been calling for both sides to meet and resolve the dispute their actions must be a hammerblow.

“We knew from the beginning that the council did not want to negotiate, they just wanted to dictate to their staff and the staff’s unions. If this is how the council wants to behave we will have no other option but to continue with the strikes.”