Cheltenham Borough Council decided to stop bin collections in snow
BINMEN offered to collect rubbish during the heavy snow last month but council bosses refused, it has been revealed.
A report by waste firm Ubico detailing the decisions which led to collections being abandoned for a week during freezing weather in January showed the organisation offered to brave the elements on certain roads in Cheltenham.
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Cheltenham Borough Council.jpg
The timeline, seen by the Echo, shows the firm contacted the borough council on January 23 – half-way through the period of cancelled collections.
And the firm said it offered to provide a partial service on some main roads in the town. But it is understood a council officer told Ubico that collections should either be fully reinstated or completely abandoned. With the weather forecast showing temperatures at below freezing until the end of that week, the decision was made to suspend all collections.
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A borough council spokeswoman said the authority made the decision to send out a clear public message.
The timeline is part of a report into why rubbish collections were cancelled between January 18 and 25.
It has put the method by which the authority and Ubico informed residents about the service under scrutiny.
Information published to keep people up-to-date on the situation has been described in the report as "confusing".
It also criticised the council's reliance on its website, leaving those without the internet, such as the elderly, in the dark.
The initial report is the work of the council's Ubico scrutiny task group.
Members of the group said they were concerned about the decision to stop collections on January 23 when much of Cheltenham was clear of snow.
Councillor Andrew Chard (C, Leckhampton), who chaired the group, said: "The decision to call a halt to collections until the next week was in our view questionable.
"The reason given for making that decision was that some people would have felt aggrieved that they were not getting their rubbish collected while other people were because their street was open and clear.
"That was why we were not collecting in the town and that is crazy."
The preliminary findings will be presented to the council's overview and scrutiny committee on Monday.
OPINION, P8
11 Comments
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by supernova1
Saturday, February 16 2013, 3:06PM
“Judas...............yes, 'risk averse' is the PC lingo you are looking for!
You really couldn't make it up, could you?”
by supernova1
Saturday, February 16 2013, 3:03PM
“Bonkim2003.....spot on.
I was told that the 'kerbsiders' had to see out their lifespan, no-matter what the cost savings.
I'm sure there are some places, even abroad, where these gas guzzling, fume belching, road blocking, inefficient dinosaurs could be sold.”
by georgette2010
Saturday, February 16 2013, 2:45PM
“BRING BACK THE WEEKLY BIN COLLECTION! You can then stop moaning about rats, urban foxes and litter! Simples!”
by raidermanuk
Saturday, February 16 2013, 12:52PM
“The person who made the decision is a public servant and his/her salary is paid by us. So who made the decision? - lets have their position and name. Obviously it won't happen as these incompetent management types look after their own and hide away under a cloak of anonymity.”
by rhys3megan1
Saturday, February 16 2013, 12:31PM
“My hubby was one of the recycle men that wanted to work but his bosses told he wasn't allowed too, he and his co workers wanted to at least try to do their work in as safe manner as possible. So when everyone a couple of weeks ago blamed the bin/recycle men asking why it wasn't them that didn't want to do the job it was the bosses not wanting them to work!”
by DG9999
Saturday, February 16 2013, 11:37AM
“And it is still knocking on-our communal recycle bins-usually half full at collection, are full to overflowing again with more than a week to go before collection (subject to no snow falls and no incompetent bureaucrats!)”
by Judas
Saturday, February 16 2013, 11:02AM
“I visited my parents in Colnbrook near Slough a couple of weeks ago. They had several inches of snow at the same time as us. Like us, pavements were the last to have the snow and ice cleared. They had NO disruption to their refuse collection. Are we just a bit more 'wimpy' in this part of the country?”
by Bonkim2003
Saturday, February 16 2013, 10:20AM
“jpmoriarty - Glos councils were offered an incentive by government to bring back weekly collections - but bent on wasting tax payers' money by the poorly thought through multi-bin collection systems put in place to boast about recycling percentages without understanding the cost and environmental efficiencies of collection systems, and as you say repercussions from missed collection sequences.”
by cheltenham20
Saturday, February 16 2013, 10:18AM
“A report by waste firm Ubico , offered to collect the rubbish, this so called firm is run by Cheltenham BC, so in effect it asked itself if it could collect the rubbish, and it said NO.. am i
suffering from an illness, or are we all on the magic roundabout....”
by jpmoriarty
Saturday, February 16 2013, 9:31AM
“It's a problem the council have created for themselves: the fortnightly collections are absolutely the minimum, so if one is missed for whatever reason it causes a problem right away. If the collections were weekly, a missed week would have had little impact and it could have been corrected the following week. As it was, some had to wait 3 or 4 weeks for a rubbish collection, which when bins contain a number of used baby nappies, for example, is thoroughly unpleasant and potentially a health hazard.”