Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Veolia excuses
Following on from the various discussions about Veolias' missed collections etc, I thought I would share with you some excuses they have come up with about the missed collections in my area.
But first I will just acquaint you with our housing circumstances which are somewhat different from most of yours.
This road, Woodstock, has houses of mainly four floors and as such the vast majority of them are HMO's which include basement flats but almost all of them have very small front yards. This means that a building with four households would have eight bins in the tiny front yard. Putting eight bins in there would mean that only the front two could be used as the others wouldn't be accessible. We protested about the wheelie bins when they first came in and even more so when they announced their intention to not only double the amount but to increase the size of them as well.
But all that fell on deaf ears, they ignored us and landed us with these huge monstrosities that over filled our yards.
Before Christmas I noticed that an awful lot of our bins weren't collected. The crews came along but ignored many properties despite the overflowing bins. Each time (each week) I phoned Veolia and complained. Then I also started using the haringey.gov site to lodge a complaint. I also contacted my local councillor.
I thought that their excuse would be the overflowing bins, lids not shut and things like that but it seems to go further than that.
I've just had a reply from my local councillor from which I will now quote Veolias' reasons for non collection:-
".... Woodstock Rd which are being investigated by Veolia’s Quality Health & Safety Officer. My understanding is that around the time of these missed collections, crew hands were not emptying bins that were, in their view, dangerous to move to the refuse vehicle due to the way it was presented for collection. Examples given included; bins placed on loose shingle, garden too small to safely manoeuvre the bins, uneven surface. The majority of issues were along Woodstock Rd, accounting for 38 properties with reported H&S issues for the refuse crew.
Veolia therefore arranged for the properties with alleged H&S issues to be visited on the morning of collection by staff who can move the bins to a place the crews can safely collect and empty. This is an interim measure to ensure residents receive a good collection service while Veolia investigate the H&S issue."
(Why can't the dustmen do that themselves? Oh, and a place for safe collection, that'll be the pavement then?)
"It may be necessary to change some properties from wheelie bins to sacks, residents affected will be contacted by Veolia to discuss their needs and concerns when Veolia have compiled a detailed list of properties that may be affected."
I'm hoping do go on a walk-about with Veolia and my local councillor to try and understand all these sudden complexities that have occurred only in the last few months. One wonders how they coped previous months and years.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by VIX on
-
It's the same in our road Hamden Lane. Three cottages have not been following the new system so us residents who have been able to follow it have been stepping around their filth. Despite calls to the council and Viola nothing was done to educate these residents. Now we all have been sent a rude letter accusing us all of obstructing the public pavement with our bins and dumping. They have put us all in a daily pick up and are removing the offending bins. We keep our bin in our garden and use the recycling bins. I hate the 'one size fits' all approach they have taken. It's lazy and a build up of refused to the side of cottages with encourage dumping. They are a bunch of idiots who do not think of the bugger picture. The whole of Tottenham has over flowing bins. This Bi weekly has to be rethought.
Vicky
-
Permalink Reply by Colinloves on
-
I think the locals should be speaking to the people who dont follow the system.
I think they will listen to you guys more than a council letter
-
Permalink Reply by Abi on
-
Do you have the details for the Veolia rep(s) in your area? We managed to get a couple of them along to a residents' meeting so we could at least put our specific concerns to them directly. I wasn't affected by anything like this so I don't know how helpful an exercise it was, but I know some residents had issues that were followed up.
-
Permalink Reply by Anette on
-
@ Neil, totally agree, it's beyond ridiculous. Oh, and for the record, my bins are on loose shingle, and they're sometimes collected. Not all the time, but it happens. So the shingle excuse is bollocks. As if we didn't know that already..,
-
Permalink Reply by Liz on
-
Except it's not 'the public sector" Neil. It's a multi-national private company contracted to do a job. Which they are failing to do.
-
Permalink Reply by Alison P on
-
I emailed Haringey about our uncollected recycling from last week. Reply below:
Thank you for your email. Although there has been an improvement in the weather conditions, we are currently working with a lag on collections due to the snow and icy conditions encountered at the start of last week. The collections have been prioritised with Haringey Council, focusing on the fortnightly refuse collections. For this reason, we have not been able to provide all residents with a recycling collection last week. In such instances we will make a double collection this week.
-
-
It's quite amazing that they could not collect from the non if roads at least. Min was not icy, perfectly fine, and they failed. No icy roads o get to my road either. Ferme Park road and Weston Park were both very clear all through last week. This is such bollocks!
-
Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
-
Looking pretty third world out there today.
We wish it was up to that high standard.
-
-
Indeed OAE, I doubt many 'third world' countries would be so wasteful with their rubbish. There's music in them their bins
-
-
OK, a personal story related to all this (get the violins ready). Rubbish collection/management isn't really something you think about before moving to an area, probably because you just assume it will happen as efficiently as it always has done. Everywhere has hiccups, but by and large things are OK.
Sadly it was only when I moved to Haringey (buying my first flat, an event that should have been happy) that I started to even notice how badly it could fail. I couldn't believe the mess: I actually cried on the day we moved in, on a hot day when there were piles of stinking rubbish building up around some of the businesses and homes near where I live. It made me feel that the whole move may have been a mistake, as I had just never seen such squalor close at hand.Thankfully I'm part of an active residents' group that since then has done a lot to tackle the same hotspots that got me so down on that first walk around, as others have moved in since and felt just as depressed as I did. One person in particular has simply refused to take no for an answer when we've come up against problems. The same streets have improved greatly - BUT WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO THIS. Should anyone have to put up with this in London FFS? And as I said to Liz on Twitter earlier, it's obvious that neighbouring boroughs are doing it better. Hackney, for example, has very similar housing issues, yet out neighbours on that side of the border don't have rubbish spilling everywhere to the same extent. It also has larger, clearly labelled street bins. When we pointed this out to Veolia in a meeting with them they just said 'we know the ones you mean but that's not going to happen here'. Why are they so ill-equipped?
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
Why is that not going to happen in Haringey? As you said there are very similar issues in Hackney around HMOs and people moving around a lot but, it's so much cleaner and... it's done by Veolia? If there is a name they can give you of someone at the council who has specifically banned the large street bins that Hackney use then please don't be shy about telling us on here. As Liz has demonstrated, some of us can write very good letters of complaint.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
