Since being elected May 2006 I’ve had several report each year about rubbish collections starting before 6am.
Rubbish trucks are only allowed out from their Manor Place depot (close to Walworth Road Elephant & Castle end) at 6am. Recycling lorries at 7am. It takes about 15 minutes to reach East Dulwich. So no rubbish collections are legitimately allowed before that time. We have had some very keen crews sending colleagues ahead to move wheelie bins into position from 5.30am. Again this is not acceptable.
Why 6am? Croydon, Lambeth and Southwark start refuse collections at 6am, Tower Hamlets at 6.30am and Lewisham 7am. Delaying Southwark collections by 1 hour, due to the extra traffic congestion starting an hour later, has been calculated at requiring an extra crew and dustcart at around £150,000->200,000 pa. In the current climate we wont be reallocating this amount of money from other areas to fund this.
If you ever experience rubbish collections or preperations starting before 6.15am please do get in touch with me. james.barber@southwark.gov.uk
Well I’m very happy about our collections. For the first two years I lived in North Camberwell, the refuse collection was always somewhere between 6.15 and 6.45 on a Wednesday morning. This was a nightmare – not just the awful thunderous noise, but the most violent part was the orange flashing light. I dreaded Tuesday nights, and sometimes had to sleep in the kitchen on the opposite side of the house – not very satisfactory.
However, they now come an hour and half or so later. Of all the things the council could do, that delay was the most welcome. (It wasn’t announced, so maybe its an experiment, and tomorrow morning they will revert to their past hellishness!!??)