Originally Posted by
ragingpup
I don't work for the council. I'm from London but live in London. My sister however works as a senior community liaison with the council and we often talk about some of the RMBC posts on here. All my family work for other public services in Rotherham and Sheffield and the stretching of public services and the impact on how well they can provide services to the public is a constant source of frustration and discussion. She can be quite critical of the council too but is fully informed and puts things into perspective.
So I assure you that I am not 'upset', I am putting an opposite point of argument to yours and others on here that are complaining about RMBC services and suggesting that whilst I agree with you that there are is some waste and some terrible decisions which you have experienced, I think it is plain unfair to say that there are substantial savings to be made so as to pay for large scale service increases in waste disposal. The overall big report I linked to yesterday discusses the councils spending decisions and rationale and the council invites both feedback on last year's spending as well as suggestions for how local people would like their money to be directed next year. Have you personally communicated with them about how you think your money should be spent?
Getting back to litter, it's good that you actively reported the fly tipping. We have similar problems here in Redbridge. However, likewise, our council are slow to act and have spoken to them on the phone about substantial waste that was left in some green land from some travelers I think. It is logged and is down on the list of environmental priorities but there is simply no one available to go out and remove it at the moment.
Interestingly you mention the fact that you now have to pay for garden waste. We had the same thing happen last spring, our council trying to claw some money back from central cuts to their funding by passing it on to us. I remember moaning to my conservative voting pal up North who retorted why should the people without gardens pay for my garden waste. I actually couldn't argue with that, and am in agreement in principle with councils extracting and directing money to the people who mainly use the services. BUT, having done this, the council then experienced meltdown at their local waste disposal site with loads of people driving their waste in and being stuck in hours worth of queues! So now they have gone back to the free service again... Good luck to RMBC on this one!
In short, I guess I come at the problem of councils providing services with a large degree of sympathy. Some obviously will be better than others and I'd love to read any articles that could be posted from posters that think any council has got it right in serving their community. Of course they should be criticised, and your experience with them is frustrating and annoying. But at the same time, others are peddling lies and untruths about the council saying things like RMBC are the only council not to recycle plastic etc, and unfounded claims that we have a greater problem with waste than other towns of similar demographic. I'm sorry but there is no evidence of this, no one can present this evidence, so I won't accept it and I will defend it.
I wish that people would direct their anger to the repeated cuts to council funding that in my opinion is the real cause of council service deterioration. You pay peanuts...
(And for the record, we Londoners have just had a CT rise with a substantial part of it directed to increasing police services in opposing the recent spike in violent crime, police presence, youth services. We have to accept this. If you want better services, you generally have to pay for them one way or another. To this effect, the government agenda is to hold down income tax (so as to keep their reputation as the party of low tax) and instead have us normals pay for services by other means - in this case, increased council tax. Sadly, for us normals, it works... We have a deterioration in services, and instead of anger against the government, it is directed against the councils...)
Reply With Quote
