THE bad weather has knocked bin collections in Huddersfield badly off track.

Schools may be back to normal, but if you missed your bin collection yesterday or Monday then it may be days before it gets emptied – or you may even miss this collection altogether, meaning they will have been un-emptied for a month.

Click below to see a gallery of stunning Huddersfield snow pictures by Examiner photographer Andy Catchpool.

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The problem was caused when the refuse collecting crews were sidetracked onto emergency gritting work in town centres across Kirklees.

The Kirklees Council advice now is if your bin was not collected this week, take it back in and wait for an update on what will happen next.

Normal collections are due to restart today, but the local authority has asked people to take their bins back in to avoid routes being blocked.

A spokesman said they were currently looking into whether it would be possible to organise ‘catch-up’ collections for people whose bins had been left un-emptied due to the snow in order to avoid them having no collection for a month.

A Kirklees Council spokesman said yesterday: “To cope with the huge amount of snowfall in the district, refuse collectors have been taking on gritting duties over the last few days so that we can get as many roads running as possible and make them passable for residents and the bin wagons. We are doing well with achieving this and by the end of the week all secondary routes should be clear providing the weather stays fine.

“Conditions permitting we will be resuming the bin collection service tomorrow morning so would ask everyone with a Wednesday collection to present their usual bin as normal.

“We are currently looking at a number of options to catch up with services missed for the grey bins over the past two days and will provide a further update tomorrow.”

The thaw began yesterday lunchtime as snow began falling off tree branches and with no further falls the gritters and snowploughs were able to do their jobs unimpeded.

Monday’s bleak picture, when only a handful of schools opened, was replaced by a much more promising state of affairs, although many schools started late.

Kirklees College on New North Road, which had been shut for two days, was due to reopen this morning.

Council gritters meanwhile turned their attention to secondary routes and attempted to clear them so long as there were no parked cars blocking access.

The intention is for every adopted street in the borough, if on a priority or secondary route, to be treated over the next few days.

Although there are over more than 1,000 grit bins in the district, one Kirkheaton householder, Carol Tibbett – a pensioner from Orchard Road – said despite several requests for salt she and her husband, Leslie, had been unable to receive any from the council.

She said: “We live on a bad hill and it can be dangerous if it’s icy. My husband has cleared a lot of it himself.”

Due to the bad weather the council has had to cancel mobile library services to prevent risks to the safety of its customers and staff.

Mobile library services for today have been cancelled and the situation will be reassessed for the rest of the week.

Home service library deliveries will carry on as normal so the most vulnerable customers receive a door-to-door service.

Unless conditions become markedly worse the plan is to continue with home service deliveries to them.

Anyone needing updates on specific Mobile Library routes, please contact the Mobile Library Office on 01484-226320.