Toxic waste row Brighton's Labour leader pledges to win bin battle

The threatening note, if not explicit, was thinly veiled. Written in capitals, it had been left on a car parked outside the home of a waste-depot manager. The car's tyres had been slashed. "Leave the case alone. Brakes next," it said. "Nice dogs by the way."

- Alexandra Topping

It may sound like a scene from a Sopranos-style mafia drama, but the threat was not made in mob-run New Jersey: the note was left in one of the most liberal, bohemian cities in England. The threat marks a low point in the decades-long bin saga in Brighton, which has flared acrimoniously back into life. The story includes death threats, lorry sabotage, slashed tyres, accusations of gangsterism, counter-allegations of union bashing, equal-pay claims, strikes, stashed weapons and police investigations.

For Brighton and Hove's 278,000 residents it has also, more mundanely, meant hundreds of missed bin collections.

The row between Brighton and Hove council and the GMB union, which has a strong presence in the city's main waste depot, resurfaced after a council report revealing a 140% increase in missed collections over the last six months blamed an outdated paper-based system, spending controls and an ageing fleet. But there was something else.

The report referred to "toxic behaviours" by a small coterie at the council's Hollingdean depot, including managers having their tyres slashed, "ongoing sabotage of council vehicles" and "intimidatory acts both in the workplace and at managers' homes". It added: "A death threat was made as recently as January 2025." And there were other eyepopping claims made in a letter to staff at the depot this week, seen by the Guardian. "We have seen video footage of a manager's home being intentionally picked out and stoned by a masked man," wrote the director of the service. Another employee had been found dealing drugs using council vehicles and phones. A small number of individuals were to blame, said the director, who nevertheless added: "It is not isolated. It is coordinated.