"Rubbish rubbish collection" in East Devon

Today's on-line Herald has a rather unpleasant story:
Maggots found in Sidmouth bin after three weeks with no collection - Breaking news & sport in Sidmouth | Sidmouth Herald

Despite promises of a 'new regime':
Recycling scheme to start in Sidmouth and Ottery on Monday - Breaking news & sport in Sidmouth | Sidmouth Herald

In fact, there has been a series of unpleasant stories covered by the EDW blog this week:


EDDC’S NEW RUBBISH RUBBISH COLLECTION

27 JUN 2017

From a correspondent:

“We are now in week 3 of the new collection scheme.

Week 1 (heatwave): Collection day Tuesday. Reported missed collection Wednesday morning. Told Thursday afternoon it had been collected but it hadn’t. Chased and chased.

Week 2 (still heatwave): Complained again because we had thousands of maggots crawling all over our kitchen waste bin (having been stood in the sun for more than a week). Eventually collection made – but this was not the missed one – it was the next one.

Week 3 (today): Bins not collected again. Call centre clogged with calls from irate residents. EDDC apologetic – and say that there are hundreds of people calling to complain – but simply wringing their hands, not actually doing anything to fix it.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how EDDC PR dept can churn out PR after PR hyping what the council claims it is doing well – but not a peep out of them we residents deserve an apology and an explanation and details of an action plan to fix it.”

EDDC’s new rubbish rubbish collection | East Devon Watch


OTTERY ST MARY COMPLAINS ABOUT RUBBISH RUBBISH COLLECTIONS

27 JUN 2017

Comments from Ottery Matters blog:

“… My parents has been missed ever since the new service started. Think they eventually got it collected last Friday after making several calls to EDDC.”

… There is an eddc app that you can use to report missed collections too.

… I spoke with the Waste Collection team earlier this afternoon – there as a long wait on hold, and when I eventually got through I was told that there have been hundreds of complaints about non-collection. Apparently many homes have been missed off the new routes.

First week of new scheme (in the heat wave) we had no collection and ended up with hundreds of maggots crawling out and over our food waste bin. Disgusting!!

So it seems like the new scheme is having major teething issues – and EDDC is failing to get the contractor to get on top of the issues.

… Neither has ours in Knightstones.

… We’ve been waiting 3 weeks in rockbeare! Well just our lane actually! Think we’ve been erased from the map!

… General enquiry. Has anyone else’s recycling not been collected for the last 2 weeks or is it just sunnyhill?”

Ottery St Mary complains about rubbish rubbish collections | East Devon Watch
Ottery Matters public group | Facebook


NEW REFUSE COLLECTION SCHEDULES: HAS EDDC GOT ITS PRIORITIES WRONG?

29 JUN 2017

From a correspondent:

“A couple of very nice Suez employees turned up this morning to pick up our recycling – because we complained (again) on the day at 6pm that it had not been collected, though it was in fact collected on the correct day if rather late in the day i.e. c. 6:30pm.

The employees very kindly explained that the system is not working because they do not have enough lorries. My initial thought was that Suez should buy some more, however it turns out that, so they said, it is not Suez’s fault at all, but (surprise, surprise [sic.]) EDDC’s.

Apparently they say that Suez’s contract with EDDC is to run the collection using vehicles provided by EDDC, and EDDC are simply not providing sufficient vehicles for the number of homes in East Devon, and in particular are not providing enough lorries to cope with the growth in housing numbers. So they say the staff are working many more overtime hours than they would like and are still struggling to make all the collections needed.

Once again it seems that EDDC have got their priorities wrong. They can waste several million pounds on a vanity project for new offices – the financial business case for which would be very suspect if EDDC had actually produced a financial business case – but they cannot afford to provide sufficient vehicles for collecting waste.”

Owl welcomes comment from EDDC for balance.

New refuse collection schedules: has EDDC got its priorities wrong? | East Devon Watch

All sorts of promises were made back in 2015:
Futures Forum: Rubbish collection - or not - in Sidmouth and East Devon
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