Bin men on loan as new recycling service comes in

7:30pm Tuesday 29th January 2013 in News

Town hall bosses will borrow bin men from a neighbouring authority to avoid disrupting the service.

Lewes District Council has won more than £2 million of funding from the Government to set up a food waste service for its 95,000 households.

The local authority claims the new collections will double its recycling rates.

But, in order to ensure its refuse and recycling service is not disrupted while the scheme is being set up, Brighton and Hove City Council will be asked to help it run existing routes.

Lewes council leader James Page said: “We want residents to benefit from the new service while continuing to receive the highly valued regular weekly refuse collections.

“By sharing resources we are making the best use of public money, which is a common sense and pragmatic solution.

“This is an exciting new partnership for both councils. It will enable us to share good practice in running value-for-money local services.”

The partnership is expected to begin in March and run for one year.

Council bosses believe the new food waste collection service will be established by June.

Residents in the Lewes district will continue to receive their regular weekly refuse and fortnightly recycling collections As part of the deal an operational manager and senior staff from the city council will work with Lewes.

City council leader Jason Kitcat said he was “really delighted” by the partnership.

He added: “As a council we’re also focused on delivering better services to the public and we feel that genuine savings can be delivered through closer partnerships with neighbouring authorities.”

Mark Turner, of the GMB union, said he was supportive of the arrangement.

The deal will run for up to a year and Brighton and Hove will receive compensation for the work.

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Comments(12)

Morpheus says...
7:43pm Tue 29 Jan 13

Jason, if you are focused on service can you send somebody to empty the bins in Woodingdean which should have been emptied 11 days ago. The lorries couldn't get in the road because you also failed to send out the grit lorry to clear the snow.

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NickBtn says...
7:51pm Tue 29 Jan 13

Yes, we're overdue for recycling by 11 days now. There were 3 or 4 days lost to snow but that doesn't explain it....

Great that Lewes now has food recycling. Very odd that the greens, yes the greens, haven't managed this in Brighton. Recycling rates here are poor. For the greens to be re-elected they need to be pro some things not just anti (especially anti car, anti-business). Pro recycling sounds like a no brainer for greens....

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Hove Actually says...
9:02pm Tue 29 Jan 13

Full of kitcrap doesn't think we tax payers can work out that if he has extra capacity for collections then why doesn't he run a better service here in Brighton & Hove

Who pays when these "extras" retire or go on holiday or are sick, before sub contracting people out he should be looking to mitigate our long term costs

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Maxwell's Ghost says...
9:15pm Tue 29 Jan 13

Jason, can you look at the Veolia contract which allows the Hove recycling site to close at lunchtime on Saturday which forces all of the city's traffic over to Wilson Avenue. This traffic all heads up Bear Road or the 20mph residential Coombe Road and then sits in Wilson Avenue for up to an hour in the summer because of the volume of people recycling waste. Then can you get your Cityclean folk to enforce filthy street litterers.
In my area the streets are a disgrace because you will not enforce the laws. The same student properties dump plastic bags of waste on the pavement which are ripped open by seagulls. Instead, your binmen walk past refusing to pick them up so every week without fail the decent neighbours take it in turns calling Cityclean asking them to come back to pick up, sending yet another wagon to clear the mess within an hour of the bin lorry ignoring the waste.
Bizarre, not cost effective and plain stupid.
I think you need to sort your own backyard instead of claiming an eco victory in a town unrelated to the city you are supposed to serve.

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deve says...
9:30pm Tue 29 Jan 13

North Laines - no recycling collection last week - and students left the boxes out since then. No idea when next collection is. All overflowing and gulls speading the rubbish round the streets. Great advert for tourists- streets full of rubbish

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WhatsNotToLike says...
9:35pm Tue 29 Jan 13

No rubbish collection in my street either for 11 days now. I try to recycle as much as possible, so usually have some space in my bin come collection day (Friday last), But now onto extra bags. Left a message on the automated service for pickup, but going by these comments it's obviously a widespread problem. My crew are generally efficient and quick, so I don't envy the extra job of collecting effectively two weeks rubbish from each household. I also agree about the Hove site shutting early on a Saturday and the demands it puts on the Wilson Site venue. I was up there recently and saw a lovely old metal wateringcan, I thought it would look lovely with a plant in the garden, so asked the gentleman if I could buy it..he was rather gruff and said nope, anything that goes in the skip stays in the skip and belongs to my boss (I have no idea who he was alluding too!) I said what a shame and had to toss it back in..considering I was recycling/upcycling, you would think that would be a good thing! Another reason to use Hove as it has its little YMCA shop.

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BrightonHoveboy says...
9:40pm Tue 29 Jan 13

WE obviously need to sack a few binmen if we have too many. Alternatively, we could get councillors to cover the binmen while they are away and kitkat could go just a very small way to justifying a few pence of his £41,000 a year he removes from Brighton and Hove Taxpayers

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Over the hill and far away says...
11:29pm Tue 29 Jan 13

We recently moved to B&H from Wealden and were dismayed at the lack of recycling progress. In Wealden we had the same fortnightly collection as here but the volume we could recycle was much greater- a huge wheelie bin for card & green waste, a big sack for tins, plastic bottles, tetrapaks & foil, and a box for paper. Here we have 2 black boxes and after 3 weeks we already have enough to fill them 3 times over!

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leedsnowfan says...
11:42pm Tue 29 Jan 13

Im in a bn2 postcode. Today is 15 days since our last bin collection. No idea when recycling will be done at this rate!

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saraman says...
5:53am Wed 30 Jan 13

On loan? Better move fast, the transfer window closes in two days.

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george smith says...
7:11am Wed 30 Jan 13

To be honest, it might be a lucky break for the workers to get away from the madness of Brighton, but my recycling boxes haven't been emptied and the street looks a mess.

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Hoarder12345444 says...
10:16am Wed 30 Jan 13

I saw a bin Lorry in patcham area today. That is awful, and I thought the 2 weeks for Mid Sussex council was bad enough. That is woefully managed. Also the recycling boxes are replaced by real bins in mid sussex, which make it easier and dont blow away in the wind. Brighton and Hove Council need to sort it out. Think I'll try and plan my move back to Brighton, post the Green party being in power.

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