BIN collections in Southampton were returning to normal today after months of industrial action, council chiefs claimed last night.

A summer of rolling strikes and work-to-rule action over pay cuts wrecked the usual timetable leaving rubbish piling up on the streets and forced residents to leave bins out permanently in the hope they would be emptied.

At its height it was estimated that there were one million black bags littering the city’s streets and pest controllers were reporting a huge rise in call-outs to deal with rats and flies.

Now the council says lower sickness levels, new staff to 16 fill vacancies, fewer union members taking “go slow” industrial action and private contractors picking up recycling, has allowed it to catch up on weekly household waste collections.

But recycling collections are still lagging behind the normal fortnightly calendar and green waste collections remain suspended for at least another week.

Council leader Cllr Royston Smith said: “We are seeing our bins being collected every week once again. And by this week we hope that our residents will have their bins collected on their dedicated collection days.

“I can only apologise for the impact that this industrial action has had on residents and I can assure everyone that we will do all we can to get this council back to doing what it does best – delivering good value for money services to our customers the tax payers of this city.”

The council said it expected full rubbish collection services to resume by the end of the month.

Unite, the bin men’s union, insisted its work-to-rule was ongoing.

Unions have suspended strike action while they ballot staff, including bin men, over a proposal to end six months of industrial action over pay cuts of between two and 5.5 per cent brought in under threat of dismissal in July. The council says it will protect 400 jobs.

The proposal would lift around half the council workforce from the cuts and restore some lost pay to others, although a two-year pay freeze would remain.

Unite, the bin men union, is recommending its members reject the proposal which would see a £12m unfair dismissal claim by union members set aside.