Councillors said that they frustrated that recycling remained uncollected for four weeks.
Conservative councillor Alistair McNair, who represents Patcham and Hollingbury, told residents that he was taking up the issue of overflowing recycling bins at Stanmer Heights with officials.
Councillor McNair said that he had worked with his fellow Conservative ward councillors Anne Meadows and Carol Theobald to improve the rubbish and recycling collections at Stanmer Heights and had seen improvements for refuse.
He said: “It has been very disappointing to find out recycling has been missed for four weeks.
“We keep in touch with residents at Stanmer Heights to monitor the situation and visit regularly.
“We have visited Stanmer Heights to see the current situation and reported it to management at Cityclean as soon as we knew.
“The recycling bins are overflowing, which leads to huge amounts of litter.
“We have not so far had any response from the council as to why it has not been collected for the last four weeks.
“This year, recycling and rubbish collections have been very sporadic in parts of Patcham and Hollingbury.
“Mackie Avenue and Rotherfield Crescent, to name just two streets, had missed collections for more than two weeks, but many more streets have had missed collections.
“We have been given different reasons, for example, a shortage of lorries.
“With a new Labour administration promising to fix the basics, we do hope that improving rubbish and recycling is their number one priority and residents notice a difference very soon.”
The council said: “We’re very sorry about the recent problems with recycling collections at Bramble Way, Stanmer Heights.
“Our crews have been having difficulties pulling the big recycling bins out and then manoeuvring them. So we need to put handles on these bins.
“We will be getting this done as soon as possible so that regular weekly collections can be re-established.
“In the meantime, we have arranged for a collection to happen over the weekend.”
I thought the new green and pleasant land Labour promised was supposed to help? It’s as if the council can’t do anything about the manifesto issues labour campaigned on….
It’s as if the council can’t wave a magic wand and solve everything in their first week, you silly bean.
It’s as if the issues the Greens faces are the same ones that Labour will face and – can’t be fixed.
Contractual and financial things entirely beyond their
Control including the recycling….
Agent provocateur
Come on use some brain, the new administration need time to see what the problems are, work out a plan and start to put things into action, it won’t happen over night.
**Contractual and financial things entirely beyond their
Control including the recycling**
Utter rubbish, financially wise, they hold the purse strings and can deal and manage and control it.
If contractors are not meeting the requirements, ie Voila doing the recycling then BHCC need to start dishing out penalties.
Secondly, if you read the article, it states clearly Our crews have been having difficulties pulling the big recycling bins out and then manoeuvring them. So we need to put handles on these bins. It also states it’s had a shortage of vehicles, doesn’t state why, but previously due to breakdowns or waiting for parts.
Both of these are 100% council incompetence and nothing to do with any financial restrains.
No. Because 1) they should have already had day one plans in place. Labour was on the council last week.
2) the issues are contractual and financial. They have no money and they have a contract they can’t get out of – tell me I’m wrong clever kid.
Agent provocateur 15 May 2023 at 7.34am
(No. Because 1) they should have already had day one plans in place. Labour was on the council last week.
2) the issues are contractual and financial. They have no money and they have a contract they can’t get out of – tell me I’m wrong clever kid.)
1) Ok, so before one can put in plans, you need to know the full extent of what is wrong and put together a plan to put them right. It can not be done overnight, these things take time. You obviously have no idea of what is involved in dealing with things like this.
Organising and planning can take some time, no matter what pre-plans were put in place and don’t forget, they’ve only just taken office and need time to organise themselves.
2) Contracts can always be got out of, especially if the operator is failing to provide the service it has agreed to do.
Financial difficulties Hmm, so taking money out of the pot claiming it was ring fenced for a vanity project doesn’t sound like a council short on funds tbh.
I’m not going to argue the points, but there’s plenty of mis-management cases I could highlight.
Lets agree to disagree on these points.
1 – labour are and have always been on the council. They know what the problems are there is no reason at all to not have a day one plan – except incompetence and over promising.
2- You can’t get out of contracts without paying a penalty or showing the contract is not being upheld – it is being upheld it’s just it’s an awful one out in lace by labour.
3- the council has no money. Thanks to the tories and adult social care. The last council had no money. This council has no money. Labour has no way of getting any more money. So it won’t change.
Agent provocateur 15 May 2023 at 11.09am
1. While it is correct that Labour were on the council, they were not running the council were they?
I’m sure labour were/are aware of some problems and I’m sure they had/have ideas to put in place to address them. They can not just change things without holding full council meetings and getting approval, WHAT PART OF THAT IS DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND?
2. Contracts, as I said already can be revoked if it’s not meeting the criteria.
And I indicated that contracts can always be got out of, and you’ve given one option.
3. So the council claims it has/had no money, yet can go out and spend £millions of our taxes on Bike/other vanity schemes over the grants awarded and on less priority projects. Yes budgets are tight, but it’s the sheer mis-management of our funds that have brought the downfall in part of the greens.
School to Home transport is a prime example of a wastage, running perfectly fine but some fool decided otherwise and cost this city almost a million.
If it’s not broke leave alone.
Labour need to address the un-nessicary expenditure that is obvious to most of us. They can and should prioritise things but the problem this admiration has is that the budget has already been agreed for the coming year so limited to what it can do.
Things can be changed in many ways, most of us can see what needs to be done across a vast range of topics, the main points being getting basic services back to a legal requirement and ditching non important projects.
This city is on it’s knees and Labour have a lot of work to do to get it breathing again, a up hill struggle no matter what the budget restraints are. Get the city clean and get some pride back should be top of the list.
The new administration isn’t in charge until after the council AGM in a couple of weeks time.
But they don’t have a day one plan? Why not? Sounds like incompetence before they start to me…
Agent provocateur
Before any plans can be put into operation, these would need to be agreed and passed by the full council and if a complete re-organisation is required, this may require Union agreement if working practices are to be changed.
So until the council has it’s meetings, nothing will change overnight, I’m surprised you don’t understand that.
I’m surprised you don’t understand that they have a majority and they said they had a olan to fix all this. Was that a lie or dramatically over promising or both?
Labour won’t make the Union change their working practices – they never do. We will be even more beholden to the unions that’s before. Shocker.
Years of waiting to come with no changes in the ground….
Having a majority does not mean the end of proper rules of decision making. It does not mean they have carte blanch make changes.
They aren’t in office yet – the leader and committee chairs (and committee members) won’t be and indeed can’t be apointed until the AGM and only then can policy changes be taken to committee for decsiion
In the interim officers will be looking at the manifesto and having preliminary discussion with the prospective committee chair and detailed policies and procedures developed.
Day one isn’t the day after the election when the votes were counted, nor was it Tuesday 9th May when newly elected councillors legally became councillors it will be Thursday 25th May when the council has it’s AGM and even then not everything can be implemented overnight.
Agent provocateur 15 May 2023 at 11.05am
I’m surprised you don’t understand that they need to hold a full council meeting before any major changes can be implemented.
You do know, that even though they have a majority of councillors, they still need to make motions and votes and will still need 27 to get a motion through.
Correction, Labour have previously made changes to working patterns and conditions, you have a very short memory, Unions threatened to take action but had no legal grounds to do so.
Historically, Greens have failed badly in this city, Labour have a slightly better record, given the choice, Green or Labour I know where my choice lies unless you’d rather have the Blues in ?
Hmmm, whilst the open honesty of the CityClean spokesperson is laudable in itself the facts of the matter seem to be so pathetic that one would have to laugh, if the outcomes for the residents, who pay council-tax to be served by the City council’s section called CityClean, weren’t so adverse for them!
Thus “pathetic”? Yes – ‘Grab Handles’ needed on the large wheeled bins.
Of course, of course – so how come CityClean has been so inept/incompetent as to supply, or to approve if supplied by the freeholder, bins WITHOUT the handles needed to manoeuver them safely?
Extra price for 4 handles fitted as an option when orderinging a new bin? Probably not more than £10 per handle?
Price to be paid now by BHCC (to a ‘friendly’ local metalworker?) to retrofit the bins with 4 handled each? Probably in the region of £300-£400 of taxpayers money per bin?
Yet again, as in so many areas of our Council’s activity, it very much looks like another example of: ‘Penny wise – Pound foolsh’, unless any other Commenter knows better?
I think that the new interim chief exec has to look at the culture within the council (officers and spokespersons) and do something about it. All we ever hear from council spokespersons on myriad issues is a defensive excuse without admitting any blame or shortcomings – nobody says sorry, we got that wrong and we’ll put it right. That’s where it should start and that’s the responsibility of the CEO and directors.
Too right
But that won’t happen so….
“nobody says sorry, we got that wrong and we’ll put it right”
But earlier
“We’re very sorry about the recent problems […] Our crews have been having difficulties […] We will be getting this done as soon as possible”