Last Thursday, there was a flurry of snow on the streets of Bath. Thanks to the swift gritting of the roads in the centre of the city by the council, my wife could drive our children to school, the postman could deliver our mail and even the recycling truck could remove our food scraps, but, oh no, our black bags of rubbish remained unmoved.
When I phoned up the council on Friday to ask when they were going to remove our rubbish, I was given two contradictory pieces of advice within minutes of each other. Firstly, I was told I should leave my rubbish out on the off chance that it might be collected that day, but then I mustn’t do that because I would be fined for leaving my rubbish out on a non-pick-up day. That confusion aside, it appears that this failure to pick up our rubbish—one of the fundamental services we pay our council tax for—is less to do with the snow, which wasn’t a problem for any other service, but to do with working practises. As a council spokesman was too quick to point out before the snow had even arrived, ‘When conditions are icy it is unsafe for both pedestrians and vehicles to have waste vehicles weighing up to 20 tonnes negotiating narrow residential streets and collecting waste.’
‘Conditions vary during the day…’ Yes, like their being no snow whatsoever on city centre roads. ‘And we do out best to return later to collect residual waste if it is safe.’ Safe! Everyone else was getting on with their business in the centre of Bath, why couldn’t the B&NES garbage trucks get on with theirs? Instead, rubbish is now piling up in my garden and will it still be there in a week or two weeks if this cold weather continues? Get a grip B&NES and deliver our fundamental services.
By the way, good to see that Bath MP Don Foster is still keen to spend £500,000 of taxpayers’ money on a research scheme devised by self-styled gull expert Peter Rock. Despite the government already sensibly turning down this request, Foster is now tabling an early day motion in Parliament calling on the government to think again and support this project. Note that this half a million pounds does not actually solve the city’s gull problem, but merely takes three years of research studying the birds, so that, no doubt, gull-loving Rock can declare after this vast expenditure that really there is not a lot we can do about the problem. Hmm, does Foster not realise his party is now part of the Coalition devoted supposedly to cutting such idiotic waste?Last Thursday, there was a flurry of snow on the streets of Bath. Thanks to the swift gritting of the roads in the centre of the city by the council, my wife could drive our children to school, the postman could deliver our mail and even the recycling truck could remove our food scraps, but, oh no, our black bags of rubbish remained unmoved.
When I phoned up the council on Friday to ask when they were going to remove our rubbish, I was given two contradictory pieces of advice within minutes of each other. Firstly, I was told I should leave my rubbish out on the off chance that it might be collected that day, but then I mustn’t do that because I would be fined for leaving my rubbish out on a non-pick-up day. That confusion aside, it appears that this failure to pick up our rubbish—one of the fundamental services we pay our council tax for—is less to do with the snow, which wasn’t a problem for any other service, but to do with working practises. As a council spokesman was too quick to point out before the snow had even arrived, ‘When conditions are icy it is unsafe for both pedestrians and vehicles to have waste vehicles weighing up to 20 tonnes negotiating narrow residential streets and collecting waste.’
‘Conditions vary during the day…’ Yes, like their being no snow whatsoever on city centre roads. ‘And we do out best to return later to collect residual waste if it is safe.’ Safe! Everyone else was getting on with their business in the centre of Bath, why couldn’t the B&NES garbage trucks get on with theirs? Instead, rubbish is now piling up in my garden and will it still be there in a week or two weeks if this cold weather continues? Get a grip B&NES and deliver our fundamental services.
By the way, good to see that Bath MP Don Foster is still keen to spend £500,000 of taxpayers’ money on a research scheme devised by self-styled gull expert Peter Rock. Despite the government already sensibly turning down this request, Foster is now tabling an early day motion in Parliament calling on the government to think again and support this project. Note that this half a million pounds does not actually solve the city’s gull problem, but merely takes three years of research studying the birds, so that, no doubt, gull-loving Rock can declare after this vast expenditure that really there is not a lot we can do about the problem. Hmm, does Foster not realise his party is now part of the Coalition devoted supposedly to cutting such idiotic waste?
When I phoned up the council on Friday to ask when they were going to remove our rubbish, I was given two contradictory pieces of advice within minutes of each other. Firstly, I was told I should leave my rubbish out on the off chance that it might be collected that day, but then I mustn’t do that because I would be fined for leaving my rubbish out on a non-pick-up day. That confusion aside, it appears that this failure to pick up our rubbish—one of the fundamental services we pay our council tax for—is less to do with the snow, which wasn’t a problem for any other service, but to do with working practises. As a council spokesman was too quick to point out before the snow had even arrived, ‘When conditions are icy it is unsafe for both pedestrians and vehicles to have waste vehicles weighing up to 20 tonnes negotiating narrow residential streets and collecting waste.’
‘Conditions vary during the day…’ Yes, like their being no snow whatsoever on city centre roads. ‘And we do out best to return later to collect residual waste if it is safe.’ Safe! Everyone else was getting on with their business in the centre of Bath, why couldn’t the B&NES garbage trucks get on with theirs? Instead, rubbish is now piling up in my garden and will it still be there in a week or two weeks if this cold weather continues? Get a grip B&NES and deliver our fundamental services.
By the way, good to see that Bath MP Don Foster is still keen to spend £500,000 of taxpayers’ money on a research scheme devised by self-styled gull expert Peter Rock. Despite the government already sensibly turning down this request, Foster is now tabling an early day motion in Parliament calling on the government to think again and support this project. Note that this half a million pounds does not actually solve the city’s gull problem, but merely takes three years of research studying the birds, so that, no doubt, gull-loving Rock can declare after this vast expenditure that really there is not a lot we can do about the problem. Hmm, does Foster not realise his party is now part of the Coalition devoted supposedly to cutting such idiotic waste?Last Thursday, there was a flurry of snow on the streets of Bath. Thanks to the swift gritting of the roads in the centre of the city by the council, my wife could drive our children to school, the postman could deliver our mail and even the recycling truck could remove our food scraps, but, oh no, our black bags of rubbish remained unmoved.
When I phoned up the council on Friday to ask when they were going to remove our rubbish, I was given two contradictory pieces of advice within minutes of each other. Firstly, I was told I should leave my rubbish out on the off chance that it might be collected that day, but then I mustn’t do that because I would be fined for leaving my rubbish out on a non-pick-up day. That confusion aside, it appears that this failure to pick up our rubbish—one of the fundamental services we pay our council tax for—is less to do with the snow, which wasn’t a problem for any other service, but to do with working practises. As a council spokesman was too quick to point out before the snow had even arrived, ‘When conditions are icy it is unsafe for both pedestrians and vehicles to have waste vehicles weighing up to 20 tonnes negotiating narrow residential streets and collecting waste.’
‘Conditions vary during the day…’ Yes, like their being no snow whatsoever on city centre roads. ‘And we do out best to return later to collect residual waste if it is safe.’ Safe! Everyone else was getting on with their business in the centre of Bath, why couldn’t the B&NES garbage trucks get on with theirs? Instead, rubbish is now piling up in my garden and will it still be there in a week or two weeks if this cold weather continues? Get a grip B&NES and deliver our fundamental services.
By the way, good to see that Bath MP Don Foster is still keen to spend £500,000 of taxpayers’ money on a research scheme devised by self-styled gull expert Peter Rock. Despite the government already sensibly turning down this request, Foster is now tabling an early day motion in Parliament calling on the government to think again and support this project. Note that this half a million pounds does not actually solve the city’s gull problem, but merely takes three years of research studying the birds, so that, no doubt, gull-loving Rock can declare after this vast expenditure that really there is not a lot we can do about the problem. Hmm, does Foster not realise his party is now part of the Coalition devoted supposedly to cutting such idiotic waste?