Telford & Wrekin Council Watch

StumbleUpon

Translator

Personal Messages
You are not logged in.

Donations
Enter Amount: £

Surveys List
Borough Waste Survey Health Care Survey

Main Menu

Home

TCW PETITIONS - SIGN NOW

Forums

Tell a Friend about TCW

Telford & Wrekin In Pictures

Whos Online
johnfranklyn Kath Peedoff

RSS Feeds

Latest News
Gross Incompetence Over EP A442 Assests For Sale and sold Payments to Councillors Telford Teenager Launches New Photo's Lobby Your MP on housing - but forget going to MP David Wright From Young Offender To Good Example Can MP David Wright answer this? Your Invitation Teacher at the Sutherland School caught lying to the Police Assaulted at School - Don't go to the Police Spoof Blogger Replies to MP David Wright - Exclusive The Great Leisure Centre Rip Off Telford and Wrekin FOR SALE Share Holders and Business Opportunities Question Mark Hangs over the Auditors Letter Sutton Hill Revisited Dubious Petition Beating The Rogue Trader The Regeneration Game Children Sign Unfair contracts

Latest News

FlashCalendarV1

Telford Council Watch Waste Survey

Written by John Franklyn

Friday, 04 April 2008

Telford Council Watch has been running a Borough Waste Survey web based for the past three weeks freely open those who wanted to take part.

Considering TCW does not have the vast resources available to it that the Council has, the fact that the survey was completed by almost 700 people would suggest it was a complete success.

The questions asked were not leading and simply required Yes – No answers with a final area that allowed for comments, ideas, suggestions.

The survey was NOT SUBJECT to invitation and cost the tax payer absolutely nothing – TCW footed the bill for the specialist software.

All in All 20 questions were asked, almost 700 completions and the results were somewhat different to those Telford and Wrekin Council announced.

When Telford and Wrekin Council send out their surveys, they are sent to the community panel who apply to join and will be accepted if there are available vacancies within a certain criteria, whatever that maybe.

By the virtue that not every survey is completed and returned indicates it is not a complete success. I would suggest that Telford Council Watch can say their survey was a 100% success in the fact that every person completing it, did so freely, the survey was restricted to the residents of the Borough.

I do not know if the Shropshire Star would print the results of an Independent Survey that clearly has found different result to the Council, to the best of my knowledge this is the first time a private individual has done something of this nature in the Borough.

A summary of the results are as follows

Telford Council Watch Borough Waste Survey concentrated on Recycling, Household Waste and Bulk Waste – offered in an easy to follow, quick to answer format designed to be user friendly so the person completing it did not get fed up with reading reams of paper.

The Survey was completed by Males 52.38% Female 47.62%

Whilst the Survey was open to all, the following age groups completed the survey –

Under 18 = 3.17%

18-29 = 6.35%

30-40 = 25.40%

40-50 = 31.75%

50-60 = 23.81%

60 and over = 9.52%

Households were asked if they recycled their Household Waste with

95.24% saying YES

The Use of Community recycling Centres was approached with

60.32% Saying they DO NOT use them, with 14.24% saying sometimes and 25.40% saying yes.

This result would initially suggest that Community Recycling Centres are not working and residents would prefer more to be collected from the door step and this view was supported when residents were asked:-

Would you prefer ALL recyclables to be collected from the doorstep?

The results were quite conclusive when

95.24% of residents said YES

Whilst residents clearly want more waste to be collected via a doorstep collection, there is concern with regards the amount of containers issued to each house and 84.13% of residents were not happy with the amount of containers they have and wanted more.

Recyclable is collected bi-weekly and 63.49% of residents said they would prefer more regular collections and 11.11% of residents not happy with the current service level – overall, this would suggest that 74.6% are NOT satisfied with the current service level.

There is a policy that if a household has five or more, they are able to receive another bin – 71.43% of those completing the survey were not aware of this policy.

Over the summer months, it was often reported that households suffered problems with maggots in their bins – the residents were asked about this and a staggering 73.02% of residents reported that they had suffered maggots in their bins since the start of the bi-weekly household collection service.

88.89% of residents also reported that they were not happy with the current bi-weekly collection of household waste and wanted a return to weekly household waste collections.

76.19% of residents reported that they had used the councils bulk waste collection service with 69.84% saying they found it to be an effective service. However, it a concern to note that 66.67% of residents did not know that charges were being introduced for bulk waste collections and a further 71.43% did not know the charge would be £15.

A staggering 93.65% of residents said it was NOT fair to charge for a service that is currently free and 95.24% of residents believed that charging for bulk waste collections would increase fly tipping.

Various comments were also forwarded at the end of the survey and a selection are as follows:-

Look at the evidence from elsewhere

Fair enough – but the Council should make this information available and if Andrew Eade kept his promise of giving residents a seat at full council, they might get to to see it.

not enough containers for recyclables. Plastic not collected from the doorstep. by weekly household waste collections charges for bulk waste collectons all add up to a poor service level.

Many re-cycleable items could be re-claimed and not crushed for landfill. We are members of telford recycling and many redundant items are found new homes.In the old days the \"rag and bone man\" sorted out much of the waste that is now lost to the TIP His source of income did not come from the rates.

How will people on low incomes,the elderly, senior citizens provthey are exempt from these charge, does the council have a policyof not charging those on low incomes?

Look at the evidence from elsewhere

In Lawley Bank there is a huge litter problem despite increasing number of dogwaste/litter bins being provided. People are insensitive to the future of our planet, it is ours and we have to look after it, people here have evolved into lazy indulgent beings.

Council tax goes up and services go down we pay more for less every year and getting charged for waste disposal is a con a way of squeezing more money out of us. A 4.6 increase on council tax this year is far higher with all the added services we have to pay for ourselves I have to go to a recycling centre twice a week costing me time and money.

At least £15 per collection, you cannot even get charitiesto collect, the council charge, people will only fly tipp even more.

Fly tipping is a great problem and will only become worse. We need and want a return to weekly collections.

the waste collectors leave rubbish lying in the street if they spill any and will not pick it up.

More education on recycling and larger containers to put recyclables in. Fortunately at the moment a group of three or four of us neighbours collect together so we can share the load over our containers

i cannot take plastics and stuff to centres because of my disability, so it goes in the bin. I cannot afford £15 for bulk waste and it will increase fly tipping.

When the councils of this country pay more than lip service to re-cycling and do more than their token gestures to appear to be inline with international directives,then I will do my bit.

BAck to weekly collections for household waste, green waste fornightly and so many bulk removals allowed per house per year. None take up does not run over .

The Council should do the job we pay our taxes for and go back to weekly collections

The teams that collect the waste do a great job under some difficult circumstances - unfortunately - Senior people are making some very silly decisions.

They have already identified bulk goods as part of the flytipping problem - so if it happens when its free - it goes to show it will only increase when there is a charge.

fortnightly collections = rats!

I used to take my plastics to red hill tip but now some idiot has put in sleeping police men in at an angle and i have a back injury so i am now unable to use this tip so my plastics will now have to go in the bin. This will mean i will need my bin collected every week.

stop trying to cut corners it never works. Bring back our weekly collections we are not a 3rd world country. If you don\'t face an increase in litter on streets, flytipping and dumping of waste at the doorstep of council offices!

I will not be able to afford £15 for the bulk waste collection

Would be good to be able to recycle plastics from home instead of taking them to landfill! I think this would encourage people who cant get to such places to recycle their plastics

Our bin men are excellent and extremely helpful and friendly. We do a lot of our own recycling (composting etc) so never use the green recycling bin, only the red box for cans, glass, newspapers etc. We try to keep the amount of foodwaste going into the black bin to a minimum, but even so a fortnight\'s too long, especially in hot weather.

Absolutely rubbish service no pun intended.

Shredded Paper - Can\'t put it plastic bag in recycling, need to go envelope being recycled, ever tried put shreded paper back in an envelope, who thought of this gem at the council needs their head looking at.

This survey strongly that residents do want a return to weekly collections and more recyclables collected via door step collections.

It clearly indicates that Community recycling centres are not heavily used and increasing the recyclables in doorstep collections would increase waste being recycled and reduce the waste going into the grey bin at source.

It also brings into question the communication of Council policy to the resident as over identified by the fact that over 71% or residents did not know that large families could get a second bin and 100% of residents do not know who will be exempt from the Bulk Waste Charges and what exemption criteria will be or is and they do not know what proof they will need to prove their exemption, also 100% of residents have no idea how the invoicing / payment mechanism is going to work.

Comments

RSS

Only registered users can write comments!

Telford Council Watch