POLICE CHIEF 'LETTING PICKETS CONTROL CITY'

BIRMINGHAM'S police chief has been invited to go on a bins walkabout with a city councillor amid claims his officers are 'oblivious' to the 'very serious' misery being caused in the city.

- JANE HAYNES Politics & People Editor

Officers led by West Midlands Police Chief Constable Craig Guildford are not doing enough to stop pickets obstructing waste trucks trying to get out to collect rubbish, adding to the miserable backlog, claimed Cllr Roger Harmer, leader of the city's opposition Liberal Democrat group.

And rather than being 'neutral' in the industrial dispute under way, the police failure to act is allowing small numbers of pickets to control the fate of the entire city, he said.

On Wednesday, Mr Guildford appeared to confirm that police would not intervene if striking binmen continued to 'slow walk' in the road in front of queues of lorries trying to get out to collect rubbish.

He said there was a fine line between going slow in the road and stopping, appearing to indicate that enforceable obstruction laws only kick in at that point.

Talks between the union Unite and Birmingham City Council are understood to have continued to try to settle the dispute, which is over pay and job losses.

But in the meantime pickets are continuing to hold up dozens of trucks at each of the city's three depots using a 'slow walk' tactic.

Cllr Harmer has pressed Mr Guildford to act with urgency, or to resign to make way for someone who would.