Sunday, June 22, 2008

Garden Waste 1 - Direct Action from Eric

The unpopular green garden waste collection charge has been covered at length in the local newspapers. In eight days, a group of councillors are meeting along with officers to review the scheme. My Conservative colleagues will continue to oppose the £35 charge.

In the meantime, Eric extended a helping hand to an 80 year old resident who could not afford to buy a bag and was physically unable to take the garden waste to the dump. The resident from Oxford Road contacted Eric in desperation. He visited her the next day and resolved to take the bag himself in the back of his car. After 20 minutes queuing at the Kimpton, he was finally able to get rid of the cuttings.

Eric said, "The LibDem Council really don't care about who are hit by this charge, like the elderly widow in my ward. As a Conservative I believe minimising waste is a priority but this charge really is hitting vulnerable people hard. I support the call for an urgent rethink on this policy."

He concluded, "The dump was chock-a-block with cars waiting to get into the dump. If it was that bad on a Tuesday morning, I shudder to think what it was like over the weekend."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

we won't buy these bags on principle. i'm paying more council taxes so why the hell should i becharged for this?

if the council is going to charge why does it have to be soo high?? you could buy the old bags for 50p

glad to see your opposing this insanity.

scotty

Anonymous said...

This is ridiculous. Wandsworth residents pay a massive amount less Council tax than us and do you know how their waste is colected? In orange bags, with all recycling grouped together, it is then sorted out by the Council. It's easy, it's efficient, and it's included in the Council Tax! Why can't we have this here? It probably has something to do with Wandsworth having a Conservative Council and Sutton having a Lib Dem one.

Eric is an absolute legend by the way. A really great chap and I'm not surprised at all by the lengths he is willing to go to for his resident.

Anonymous said...

Paul,
RFK is right to point out what a gentleman Eric is. Whenever I have worked with him (not enough times BTW) he has always been really nice and engaging. Politics takes all sorts I suppose! Some of my colleagues and some of yours could be described as fairly grumpy at times!
I have had correspondence from residents who are unable for various reasons to take their old sacks to the dump and cant afford the new scheme. I don't know what to say to them & for personal reasons I cant do what Eric has done. But I dont blame him for rolling up his sleeves and helping.
This is why I'm trying my best in my group to get us to rethink this decision. I got into politics to help vulnerable people, not to make life harder for them!
Yours,
Anonymous Liberal Democrat Council Member

Anonymous said...

I'm not bothering with green bags et al, I'm going to apply for a grant to buy a goat!

Anonymous said...

they hand them out at council meetings, plenty of old goats there! lol

scotty

Anonymous said...

In the light of the news about long queues at Oldfields Rd I took my few remaining clear sacks to that lovely empty dump in Epsom - no questions asked, and a lovely man to help me with the heavy rubbish.
However, it was 5 miles and 20 minutes each way so not really very environmentally friendly.
PS Don't tell Epsom.....

Anonymous said...

Being aware of Erics act of chivalry i undertook a similar mercy dash when i was contacted by an 89 year old resident of Stanley Park Road who had 9 sacks of garden waste that she was unable to dispose of.
What was amazing when i went to pick up thses bags was that she had 4 composters in her garden all of which were full.The bags which had been filled up with branches etc were not able to be put into these composters .
So off i duly went up to Kimpton whereby i wasted 53 minutes of my life queueing to get into the place.This was on a Tuesday at 12.30 and the number of cars in line was at least 80 maybe more,all with their engines pumping out lovely emissions.Most i presume also had their Air-Con on as the outside temperature was around 26 degrees.
What a joke.