The district council has just announced that Easter, May and August Bank Holiday waste collections will be a day later than advertised in the leaflets distributed by the council at the end of last year.
Amey – the waste facility at Waterbeach – had agreed that the council could collect domestic rubbish on all bank holidays. The site does not have planning permission to accept waste on bank holidays, but Amey used to write to county council planners, who would allow a variation each time to enable the waste to be collected and taken there on bank holidays.
Unfortunately, the council says that recent case law has ruled that this is not an acceptable solution, so the county council planners will no longer allow bank holiday waste collection operations.
In all cases collections will take place a day later than previously stated in bank holiday weeks. The new collection dates will be publicised through full page advertisements in the local newspapers on or around 17 March. They will also be on the Council’s web site and emailed to all parish councils.
As you’ll have seen through Little Downham today, this message did not get through to most people – ourselves included. Many black bags have been attacked by cats or blown over, and rubbish strewn around.
We don’t get a local paper, heard nothing from the Parish Council and had no cause to check the ECDC website, because we already had the leaflet with what we thought were the correct dates.
Perhaps better means of communication would have included a note on the wheelie bins at some point before today, or a revised leaflet through the door, and perhaps a social media presence, such as through “Spotted in Ely” on Facebook.
Thank you for your comments, Kevin. I’ve given feedback to council officers to that effect and asked what their plans are for future bank holidays this year (as the same problem will probably run and run until the next annual calendar goes out this autumn).