Last week Rye News reported the problems Rye Town Councillor Andy Stuart, who lives in West Street, was having with Rother District Council (RDC) failing to collect his rubbish, and how he was seeking the intervention of local RDC councillor David Russell.
However RDC’s assurances that rubbish bags will be collected in Mermaid Street in future has not helped as Andy Stuart lives in West Street – which might explain why his rubbish was not collected for three weeks.
On the other hand, when the contractors’ system has to allow for households without bins because they have nowhere to put them, and who have to use bags instead (though some homes in the historic parts of Rye may be able to have and store a bin) there might be an excuse, except that that the system has been in place for some time – and if the RDC can not distinguish between Mermaid Street and West Street either there may still be problems.
Last week RDC’s Brenda Mason, the Service Manager for the Community and Economy, was full of apologies. “Please accept my sincere apologies for the disruption to the recycling operations . . . we have been aware of this problem and chasing the contractor since last Wednesday. Our compliance officer has reported that the contractor has returned and carried out partial collections and I’m sorry this has not been properly completed.
“We have passed on the information about pink sacks in your brown bin [as Andy had placed the accumulated pink recycling sacks, safely away from seagull attacks, in his brown garden waste bin]. . . we take pride in maintaining a high standard . . . and have developed thorough systems for the reporting and follow up of missed bins”.
This Monday the high standard seemed to have slipped again. “Word’s fail me” said Andy in yet another e-mail. But actually they did not as he went on to say “Three times we’ve been missed now. They haven’t bothered to collect our recycling since before Christmas . . . I have included Amber Rudd (local MP and Government Minister) in this email as . . . the inability of Rother to make their paid contractors do their jobs is now beyond the joke !”
Brenda replied at 4:44pm to Andy’s email of 8:51 am “I understand the collection has now been made. The Council has raised the matter at the highest level with the contractor, expressed our dissatisfaction and now expects a good standard of service to resume in Mermaid Street”.
But Andy lives in West Street, Brenda.