Dave Lake
A Kingswood resident who signed up to South Gloucestershire’s controversial new green waste collection service is furious that all three of his collections so far have been missed.
Dave Lake, of Downend Road, who paid the £36 a year charge when the new system was introduced in April, told The Week In that the service was “bloody appalling”.
He said that on the first two occasions that his bin was not emptied on the allotted day, he complained to the council and the bin men subsequently had to make special journeys to empty it.
Last Thursday, when for a third time the keen gardener’s green bin was not emptied when it should have been, he got back in touch with the council but by today, he had still not heard when the collectors would be coming.
The cash-strapped council’s “optional subscription service for garden waste” has proved controversial, with Kingswood MP Chris Skidmore recently handing in a 4,200-name petition to Parliament, opposing what has been dubbed the ‘bin tax’.
The Conservatives on South Gloucestershire Council claim that Labour and Lib Dem councillors voted for the charge without proper consultation with residents and are critical of the fact that the implementation has cost £650,000.
The council’s Communities Committee will be holding a debate on the decision on 4th June.
Mr Lake felt that a better idea would have been to empty the green bins monthly, rather than fortnightly, as that would still have saved money.
A South Gloucestershire Council spokesman said: “More than 30,000 households have now signed up for the green waste collection service and we’re sorry to hear that Mr Lake’s experience of it hasn’t met his expectations.
“We take reports of missed collections very seriously and will review our records and take whatever steps are necessary to resolve this matter.”
