Almost five and a half thousand people tried to get through to
the Council to complain - but abandoned their calls.

These are just some of the findings from a series of questions put forward by the Conservative group to the Council at the Special Full Council Meeting (pdf)

They claim the answers reveal a shocking level of mismanagement and incompetence which led to the recent waste and recycling fiasco.

Cllr David Millican, Conservative Group Leader said:

"5 months before the contract started, Labour knew that Enterprise would be using temporary vehicles to collect dry recycled waste and despite residents carefully sorting everything, it was going to get mixed together. In doing so, they have effectively thrown away 90% of residents' hard work.

Labour also knew that contract reduced the number of recycling crews from 23 to 15 and that for 3 months Enterprise would face no financial penalty for service failures during this time.

It is not surprising therefore that we have experienced the level of chaos that we have with over 8,000 missed collections for the month of April alone, an increase of 27% in fly tipping and a decline of 28% of the number of streets cleaned to an acceptable standard.

I am determined that the residents of the borough have the first class service they are used to and we'll keep pressing until they do. Let's start by Labour Cllr Bassam Mahfouz facing up to his responsibilities and stepping down to let someone run else the service.

Meanwhile I encourage residents to keep recycling. The Council can only improve the service and, from our perspective, it's been rubbish so far!"

Cllr Ian Potts, Ealing Broadway Ward Councillor said:

"In all my 34 years as a Councillor and even my time as a Mayor, never have I received so many complaints about a single issue. Now that I have learnt that there were 5,400 abandoned calls to the Council in April, I can understand why people have taken to calling me instead."

 

May 22nd 2012