The new waste collection arrangements by Rother District Council, particularly over garden waste and brown bins, have caused dismay in Rye’s town centre and citadel because they assume everyone has storage space and a front garden. Even Rother’s staff seem confused and contradict each other.
The new rules, started on June 30 and run by Kier on behalf of the council, began fairly chaotically in Rye, and other areas including Winchelsea, Mill Corner, Battle and some villages, with collections missed, rubbish hanging around in the hot summer sun and total confusion over garden waste.
In the past Rye citadel has always used black bags for rubbish, pink or blue bags for different recycling, and green bags for garden waste because many of the historic homes have no space for wheelie bins and access is difficult. The black and green bags were collected weekly, the recycling bags fortnightly, and some residents used black bags for garden waste.
The weekly collection of rubbish and a fortnightly collection of recycling would continue after June 30, said Rother – but in just one pink coloured bag. There would be no collection of garden waste, and residents would have to dispose of it themselves – which residents saw as a worse service in order to save Rother money.
Initially, there was confusion over collection days. Residents were putting bags out and having to take them in when they were not collected. But after a couple of weeks the collection rota appeared to settle down. However the new scheme’s start had been put back from April because Kier had similar problems in Wealden District, and had apparently not learnt from that experience that not all houses or areas are the same – particularly historic towns. The disposal of garden waste is still a big issue with some residents because the citadel has some large and superb gardens which are open during the summer to the public for charity and other events.
Some citadel residents signed up to the brown bins for garden waste at £25 a bin, if they had storage space and reasonable access. Originally these were not meant for the citadel because of the problems with old homes – and because the contractors and their vehicles could not reach houses. But some residents requested collection and Kier have emptied some of these bins, despite initial difficulties with collections which seemed to have been resolved.
Rother has confirmed that brown wheelie bins can be used in the citadel, but this does assume that all residents have somewhere to store them and can easily get them to where Kier can and will empty them.
Linden Thomas who lives in the pedestrians only Traders Passage said : “We were informed that our new collection would be on a Wednesday. But they collected on Friday which was the old collection date, and they continued to collect on Friday for the next couple of weeks, then nothing. I contacted Rother informing them of a missed collection.
“They said to leave it out and it would be collected in the next three days! In summer! One of my neighbours said that it would be collected on Tuesdays. The following Tuesday, the black bag was collected, but the green bags were left. I ran after them to be told that they had been instructed to no longer take green bags [garden waste].”
At this point Linden Thomas phoned Rother again, to be told: “We now had to make our own arrangements for garden waste as we could not have a brown wheelie bin. I asked what elderly people without cars were supposed to do, but the person I talked to just repeated over and over again that we had to make our own arrangements. But I know that at least four people have been sold brown bins . . . and Rother is still saying that our regular collection is on a Wednesday when, in fact, it is on Tuesday.”
Another local resident, Daphne Messenger who lives in the High Street, has a brown bin: “We contacted the council via telephone and email and eventually the brown bin was emptied the first time. Since then the vehicle has driven by, but the bin has not been emptied. Although the bins are visible, the staff have not come down to empty them. The council has not responded to our further messages.”
Rother and Kier are not being consistent and residents are calling for clarity and a brown bin collection if the council has supplied them. Residents also need to know when and where to put them out for collection. Alternatively, if this service is not available, residents are asking why have Kier already collected some bins and why has Rother charged some residents for bins they now say they will not collect.
District councillor Sam Souster has raised some of these issues with the council though he says the scheme has worked well and been welcomed in the more modern parts of Rye. Emptying garden bins requires specialist vehicles with lifting equipment, he says, and “perhaps inaccessibility for such vehicles is the problem with missed collections”. He has asked the council to investigate.
Kier says that is sorting out the problems and “bringing in additional resource to support our existing teams”, but citadel residents are asking why these problems were not anticipated and planned for when the contract was agreed and the changes started.
Photo montage: Tony Nunn