On the 8th of May, one week into the 2nd month of the new rubbish and recycling contract, the Leader of the council stood up at an emergency council meeting called by the Conservative group in council to discuss the fiasco that was the rubbish collection service and said the following,
"You would struggle to find any problems with the service now. We need to put things into perspective and understand that in the early weeks of a new contract, there will always be teething problems".
That was some statement to make. First of all, to tell us we lack perspective and secondly to say on the 8th of May, everything was AOK.
It wasn't. Answers to written questions submitted by Conservative Cllrs revealed that there were still plenty of problems when the leader was saying we would struggle to find any.
In May 2012, there were 648 flytips in the borough compared to 411 in May 2011. That's an increase of more than 57%.
In May 2012, there were 3,625 reported missed collections compared to 1,331 in May 2011. That's an increase of over 170%.
In May 2012 the council recycled 280 tonnes of garden waste compared to 704 tonnes in May 2011. How much of the difference ended up in black sacks and eventually in landfill which costs us a fortune.
Finally in May 2012 53.48% of our streets were cleaned to the highest standard expected, compared to 93.42% in May 2011. Residents all over the borough will be very surprised to hear the leader of the council tell them to get things into persepctive and that is is well in the world of recycling and rubbish collection.
They're not, and he should admit as much. Time for some honesty from the leader of the council.