Agenda item

To receive verbal reports from the Portfolio Holder for Environment and Leisure and the Head of Environmental Health Services on the disruption to the refuse collection service experienced in the City over the Christmas period caused by the severe weather conditions.

The meeting has been called as a matter of urgency to discuss these matters.

Councillor Newcombe declared a personal interest as a Member of Devon County Council.

The Head of Environmental Health Services, at the beginning of his presentation, apologised for the disruption in the refuse collection service. His presentation, setting out the logistics of domestic refuse collection, the constraints of the operation, the particular problems that were and could be caused by the snow disruption over the Christmas period and lessons to be learnt for the future, is attached to these minutes.

Responding to a Member’s request for clarification, the Portfolio Holder for Environment and Leisure stated that he had accepted that there were problems on 17 and 18 December and that he had apologised in the press at that stage of the disruption. He had then been in regular contact with officers from that date and over the Christmas period through emails and telephone calls. The Head of Environmental Heath Services reported that he personally had not discussed the problems with the Portfolio Holder until 3 January, but that other senior managers, including the Director Community and Environment, had been in constant contact with the Portfolio Holder.

Councillor Mrs Henson attended the meeting and spoke on this item having given notice under Standing Order No. 44.

She stated that Exeter had come under the national spotlight for the wrong reasons during this period and that the responses of both the Leader and Portfolio Holder had been complacent and unacceptable. She referred to the exceptional amount of rubbish left in the Polsloe, St James, Newtown and St David’s areas of the City and to the spillage of rubbish on many of the pavements. She felt it wrong to blame residents for leaving out rubbish at the wrong times. Many were students, the majority of whom having left their bags out for collection prior to leaving for home over the holiday period. She stated that rubbish left in back alleys was also a problem in the summer and that the overall problem of refuse should be addressed in areas of multiple occupation.

She queried when meetings had been held between the Portfolio Holder and officers and asked why the Portfolio Holder had not made any comments until the end of December/beginning of January. She stated that she had been advised by Devon County Council officers that there were no difficulties in respect of extra tipping. She compared the situation with other countries, many of which did not seem to suffer from similar problems during periods of disruption from heavy snow.

The Portfolio Holder responded to the issues raised:

·         do not accept the criticisms levelled at the Leader and himself. However, accepted that lessons can be learned.

·         residents were not advised to take their rubbish to the tip.

·         incorrect to state that no statement had been made until the end of December. Problems had been acknowledged from 17 and 18 December with coverage in the Express and Echo and on the Council web site. He advised that the paper had not requested a picture of himself although had criticised him for not being available for a photo.

·         the national coverage in the media had been misleading. For example, the Sun had been critical in its editorial but the Portfolio Holder’s bin had been collected in accordance with the schedule and not collected early as stated in that paper.

·         it had not been possible for the tip to be opened beyond normal opening hours because of planning and other conditions, but discussions would be held with the County Council to investigate possible changes to the licence opening hours during severe weather.

·         due regard was given to health and safety and it had been too dangerous, both to the public and staff, for the lorries to be driven on many roads.

·         the MP, through his personal assistant, had been regularly updated.

The Head of Environmental Health Services responded to the issues raised:

·         safety of the public and workers could not be jeopardised.

·         countries with regular snow conditions, such as Germany, Canada and the Scandinavian countries, regularly encounter such heavy snowfalls and are prepared, so the extra costs can be justified. In Germany, snow tyres are a legal requirement for all vehicles including private cars, during the winter, but the public would not accept a similar regime in this country. Fitting snow tyres on refuse vehicles would cost up to £60,000 for the whole fleet and that cost would be hard to justify for an infrequent need.

·         chains on tyres help vehicles in snowy conditions but will rip up tarmac on cleared roads when fitted to 26 tonne trucks.

·         alternate weekly collections have been undertaken since 1990 with the residual 16,000 properties brought into the regime in 2010. Changes like this normally take three to four months to bed down. Some 4,500 properties remain on weekly collections.

·         although most refuse can be sensibly stored in back yards or gardens, the problem in the Polsloe area, in particular, will be reviewed. Many properties in Polsloe have sufficiently sized gardens for refuse bags to be kept rather than deposited in alleyways. Meetings will be held with the University to consider improvements to collections from properties occupied by students, building upon the successful work already carried out at the end of last Summer Term.

Councillor Taghdissian attended the meeting and spoke on this item having given notice under Standing Order No. 44.

He welcomed the report and apology given by the Head of Environmental Health Services and accepted that the safety of the public and Council workers was paramount. The highlighting of Exeter as a crisis area during the adverse weather conditions, in some cases as front page coverage, was very regrettable. He believed that failure had been at a political level in changing the cleansing policies. He confirmed that he had been contacted on New Years Eve and given an interview on New Year’s Day.

He asserted that this Committee meeting should have been called earlier and that the Council Leader’s statement to the media that there was not a major problem only provided additional ammunition for criticising the Council. He believed that the statement of the Portfolio Holder that he had not been contacted by the Express and Echo was an attempt to shift the blame away from his failure to be more proactive. He believed that blaming residents for placing bags out or not adequately undertaking recycling was not acceptable as bins had been put out in good faith in anticipation of collection.

The problems experienced had not been exclusive to his ward of Polsloe but also apparent in St James, St David’s, Heavitree, Newtown and other wards. He stated that he had always opposed the change from a weekly to a fortnightly collection and he hoped that lessons would be learned for the future.

The Portfolio Holder responded to the issues raised:

·         do not accept that Councillors and officers had been complacent or slow to respond - meetings had been held with the University, Devon County Council and Viridor.

·         the media coverage of bags of rubbish left in back alleys had given a very misleading impression as such difficulties were confined to limited areas of the City. These problem areas will be examined further and options such as more rigorous enforcement or reverting to a weekly collection will be examined. A review of the changes is scheduled to take place after six months.

·         meetings will continue with University representatives to discuss collections in student areas.

The Head of Environmental Health Services confirmed that every effort was being made to respond to complaints and to ensure the media are properly briefed. He confirmed the long standing problems in the Polsloe area and stated that there was no link between the disruption over the Christmas period and the change to a fortnightly collection in this area.

Councillor Mrs Thomspon attended the meeting and spoke on this item having given notice under Standing Order No. 44.

She stated that, when a Member of this Committee, she had voted against the change to a fortnightly collection. She believed that collection of refuse was a fundamental right which Exeter citizens should expect. Comments received from Pinhoe residents indicated that wheelie bins were preferred to black bags. She highlighted King Street as one of the areas where bags had been broken by scavenging birds and asked how similar problems could be prevented in respect of yellow bags which contained clinical waste.

She was concerned that the problems could recur and asked if the working hours in respect of the new regime could undergo a comparison exercise with the previous refuse collection arrangements. She referred to delays to traffic and disruption during school hours caused by the refuse lorries. Harrington Lane and Station Road in Pinhoe were very busy and the school in Harrington Lane already has ongoing challenges to ensure child safety in relation to traffic. She felt that these problems were representative of most areas within the City.

The Head of Environmental Health Services responded to the issues raised:

·         extreme weather conditions had made it impossible to continue to reach all households to collect their waste and that also affected the clinical waste collection.

·         he explained the background necessitating a changed regime and advised that the new schedules of rounds were set out in an 18 month calendar, sent to all 51,000 homes. He also stated that changes in the collection regime could not be communicated overnight to 51,000 households.

·         there is no “one size fits all” operation, some households have a weekly collection of grey waste, some have a sack collection, others a bin collection.

·         considerable savings had been made as a result of the change over and reintroducing weekly collections would cost some £1.5 million per annum.

·         an advantage of bins over bags was that because the householder could be identified and abuses of the system detected people took more care of storing and presenting their rubbish. In King Street, traders have included trade waste in domestic collections and landlords have failed to provide keys to access flats.

·         the clinical waste service had also been affected but recovered quicker. The yellow sharps boxes are collected at three quarters full, so had spare capacity which meant that a missed collection could be coped with.

·         the rounds are planned to take account of busy road conditions, school hours and the tip closing times.

·         the Christmas period always witnessed a spike in the collection with average tonnage increasing from 70 tonnes to 190 tonnes per week, which meant that normal progress along the collection routes could take longer and sometimes coincide with school closing times.

Councillor Shiel thanked the Head of Environmental Health Services for the full and informative response. He felt that the wrong tone had been provided during contact with the media and that greater contrition should have been shown. He felt that such an apparent lack of contrition had exacerbated public anger and that there should have been an acceptance that a crisis was being faced. He moved a motion of no confidence in the Portfolio Holder.

Councillor Hobden, seconding the motion, stated that the response to the weather conditions had been inadequate and had brought discredit to the City. She referred to public in her ward who had complained about the general condition of the City rather than specific wards and who had referred to the evidence of uncollected rubbish apparent when walking into the City Centre. As a previous Portfolio Holder with another authority, she felt that the response of the Portfolio Holder had been insufficient and she asked him if he could provide figures in respect of the phone calls and emails etc. he had made in relation to the problems. She felt that other authorities, facing similar situations, had responded better.

The Head of Environmental Health Services explained that other authorities had responded in different ways partly due to access to tipping facilities which had better opening times than the tip in Exeter which the Council had been directed to use by the County Council and partly because the snow had not been so heavy. The Director Community and Environment advised that she and other officers had actively and frequently been in touch with both the Leader and the Portfolio Holder during the holiday period. In response to another Member, the Head of Environmental Health Services had confirmed that the extent of email correspondence with the Portfolio Holder had been significant.

Responding to the Chair, the Portfolio Holder advised that the first meeting he had held with officers to discuss the situation had been on 23 December 2010 although he had been in telephone and other contact since the 17^th when the weather first caused probelms.

Another Member, who had been abroad over the Christmas period, stated that he had kept abreast of matters through purchasing English newspapers and via the internet and felt that the responses had been unacceptable. He called for the resignation of both the Leader and the Portfolio Holder. He predicted that the problems would occur again. He compared the collection regime with that in France where a twice weekly collection was undertaken. He did not feel that the cost of reverting to a weekly collection in Exeter should be regarded as prohibitive as he had calculated that a Council tax increase of £2 a month would be sufficient to meet the extra cost. He also did not accept the argument that recycling rates would decrease with a weekly collection.

The Head of Environmental Health Services reiterated the costs associated with returning to a weekly collection and stated that research had shown a 22% increase in recycling associated with a fortnightly collection. The Portfolio Holder pointed out that a £2 a month increase in Council Tax would equate to an increase of nearly 20%.

A Member thanked the Head of Environmental Health Services for his presentation. He felt that the coverage in the media did not accurately reflect the overall picture in Exeter and that the areas highlighted had suffered from long term problems of refuse being poorly presented. He himself had not received complaints from residents in his Newtown ward other than questions regarding the timing of road gritting. He suggested that a representative of the County Council should also have been invited to the meeting to discuss joint policies for meeting future emergencies since they were responsible for road gritting, which had only been carried out on the major routes. He also defended and supported the work of the Portfolio Holder during this period.

Another Member also strongly supported the Portfolio Holder, stating that she had received very few complaints from the residents of the Priory ward. She also stated that Polsloe was one of the areas where the new system of alternate weekly collections had been introduced and that the reported problems were therefore not surprising.

Another Member commented that, in speaking to the public, there had generally been an acceptance that, under extreme weather conditions, a disruption to the service was inevitable. However, many had been dissatisfied by the image of the Council that had been generated through the media coverage. It would be important to learn from this particular element.

The Portfolio Holder referred to the background to the policy decision to change to a new system and remarked that, since the new regime had been rolled out, the Council had coped well. He agreed that lessons should be learned and that the suggestions received from the public in respect of improved communications, such as use of text facilities, would be examined. Although the cleansing service had maintained a high (98% satisfaction rate) over the years, he accepted that there was always room for improvement.

RECOMMENDED to Council that this Special Meeting of the Scrutiny Committee- Community, having discussed the disruption to the refuse collection service experienced across the City over the Christmas period, finds the performance of the Portfolio Holder fell short of what was required in that:

·         he did not make an appropriate response to the crisis;

·         he failed to communicate properly with residents; and

·         he brought by his failure, Exeter and the City Council into serious disrepute in the national media.

and accordingly this Committee expresses a vote of no confidence in the Portfolio Holder and calls for his immediate replacement.