AN angry Warrington councillor has hit out over blue bins that have not been emptied for 36 days because of bad weather.
The borough council has also attacked for poor communication with residents during service difficulties, as it just relied on putting posts on the internet.
Woolston and Rixton councillor Bill Brinksman is demanding that the Town Hall Winter Task Group be recalled so that the “lessons of the recent cold snap” can be learned.
He said: “Over the last few days I have had numerous complaints from constituents about the lack of bin collections. In fact in Woolston we will now have had to wait 36 days to get our blue bins emptied and the council hasn’t done enough to keep people informed.
“It’s not good enough that the council just posts information on their website because not everyone has access to the internet. In other towns councils have been more innovative in communicating with their residents, using loud hailers or adverts in the local papers. Warrington Council should be doing more themselves.”
He said the Labour group on the council had other complaints about how cold weather problems have been handled by the council. These included a poor turnout at the recent by-election in Bewsey and Whitecross ward, which they put down to the inadequate gritting of the roads and pavements.
Labour leader Terry O’Neil said: “Our road gritting strategy needs looking at urgently. It can’t be right that the Lib Dem-Tory coalition council gives priority to commuter routes for living outside of Warrington but that we do not grit our side streets and our estates, meaning local people cannot get to work safely or in the case of Bewsey and Whitecross ward, even get to the polling station.
“If the council says they cannot empty the bins because the icy roads aren’t safe then that surely proves our point about the lack of an adequate gritting strategy.”
AN angry Warrington councillor has hit out over blue bins that have not been emptied for 36 days because of bad weather.
Anger over unemptied bins
88 Comments
Share.
About Author
Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
8 Comments
The comments of Councillor O’neil reflect a total lack of understanding. Just like most of his Labour Group he is a hoover of misery. He is always willing to throw criticism at the Council workforce and undermine the hard work that all staff have done throughout the adverse weather. More importantly he nevers comes back with any solutions. Just look at the counrty and what 13 years of the last Labour Government has done for us all??? Ask yourself a simple question – Do I want Labour to mess up Warrington the way they recked the counrty?
Well I think Cllr O’neil is right… they DO need to sort out their gritting strategies and policies. Many of Warrington’s side roads, B Roads, pavements etc were an absolute disgrace and were treacherous. One sweep of grit would have solved many off them and would have reduced the number of accidents that were caused by their ‘no action’ strategy too !! As for the bins not being emptied, yes more should have been done to keep people informed I agree. Having them not emptied was a bit frustrating but not really a big deal. Ours were finally emptied today and as promised all the excess bags for the back bins and excess for the blue bins have all been taken too. Thanks Mr Binmen 🙂
Kevin, can I just ask one question? Why are the public not entitled to a refund on their council tax for services not delivered? I pay a heck of a lot of money to have my bins emptied on a weekly basis, I pay a lot of money so that I am able to travel safely on gritted and maintained roads (although it does cost extra every year for suspension damage due to pot holes and speed bumps, but that is another argument) I wouldn’t pay the window cleaner if he didn’t clean my windows and I’m pretty damn sure the council wouldn’t pay my bills if I didn’t deliver to them so why should the council be any different?…… it would also be nice if you could come and knock on a few doors all the way over here in Westbrook between elections once in a while; it was nice chatting to you last year, but 3 years is a long time until the next election and Sankey is such a long way away on such treacherous roads!! 🙂
Kevin. You sound as if you have “ostrich syndrome”. Just because the previous lot screwed things up, is NO reason to imitate them.
We have had TWO snowy spells so far this winter and both have caused chaos. All that happened between the two was that WBC actually managed to stockpile some salt/grit, although they were reluctant to use it.
NOTHING was learned from the first bad spell as nothing changed. People still had roads and footpaths that were dangerous.
What is this hard work that people have been doing considering that most of not all were at home during the holiday period?
Where are the yellow salt bins that we used to have?
Time to STOP ticking boxes and get your hands dirty doing the job properly.
A Longbarn resident has written to me today saying that ‘the blue bins have now not been collected for over a month and it will be 5 weeks by next Tuesday. Bins are still, today Wednesday, all over the close with residents expecting a collection’ he believes that representations ought to be made to the hierarchy at the Council to get a collection in before the end of this week. He too raises the question of a reduction in Council Tax for no provision of service and wants me to ask either the Director of Finance for an answer or the District Auditor?
In the week before Christmas I made my views known to the Waste Services Manager about the collection issues and I believe that he did take some of my comments on board. I was able to use the information he sent me to produces leaflet for a number of local streets and let people know that an extra black-bin collection was taking place the following day. Unfortunately the collection service did not reach Longbarn residents and yet again they were let down.
The latest news I have about the blue-bin collection for Poulton North is as follows:
‘Just to confirm that there are no planned further changes to blue bin collection schedules – if collection dates have been notified as 11th January in Poulton North then that is when they’ll take place.
We realise that this is an inconvenience, especially for those households who didn’t receive a blue-bin collection due to the snow and ice before Christmas. Our manned recycling centres are open as usual 7 days a week and we are making additional collections of recycling waste this week and next – we’re asking householders to place any additional items for collection in clear bags/sacks or in open boxes at the side of their bin on their blue bin collection day so that we can tell that those items are for recycling – we won’t collect non-recycling items with blue bin collections [e.g. food waste]. We’re also asking that no broken glass or items with sharp edges are left out as side-waste for collection’.
A full week before Christmas it snowed once, for a period of no more than 6 hours on one Friday night. And it was well forecast in advance.
It took until well into the Monday for just the major routes to be adequately cleared. And then all gritting seemed to just stop.
No further snow fell and temperatures stayed very low so that there was no significant melt and re-freeze on the major routes. Only fairly minimal re-gritting was needed.
Why were the gritters not then deployed to the so called “minor” routes to enable rubbish collections to take place and Warringtonians to actually move about town rather than just allowing non-Warringtonians to travel through the town?
Baz – Our chat’s are more than welcoming and as you know I don’t just turn up at election times. Next time mine’s a tea white no sugar.
Well I know that they were as Dorchester Ave was gritted early hours.
On that Friday night over 6 inches fell within a short period of time from about 7pm onwards. I remember the 21.40 bus stopping outside my house full with people coming back from Town and Xmas do’s.
All Councillors were well informed about the situation on the bins because they all got the e-mails. I hope they are not saying that they didn’t know because they did?
Also Warrington Worldwide was reporting issues.