16 March (Part 1) - The long and the short of it
Yesterday’ Places Scrutiny Committee meeting was a long one at two hours and
38 minutes but you may be relieved to know that the blog will be relatively short.
The bulk of the meeting was taken up by two presentations by commercial
undertakings, Thames Water and CountryStyle who are five months into their ten year waste contract.
Thames Water provided a few statistics such as
62 million litres of water a day supplied to Bexley’s 100,000 premises and it
comes via the ring main from West London and the North of the borough uses more than elsewhere.
Councillor Nigel Betts opened a can of worms by referring to the numerous
complaints received from residents about the mess left behind by Thames Water
after carrying out works. “Why no pressure washing etc? Are there no standards to be observed?”
A big problem is the digging which follows the replacement of a leaking meter.
The problem was recognised and Bexley said not to be unique and yes there are standards
to be applied and perhaps they are not.
Thames Water management would go to take a look at any reported,
all day if necessary and sit down and discuss issues with Councillors.
CountryStyle was back after their initial baptism of fire. When taking over
after the Serco strike there were 30,000 uncollected bins and it took two and a
half weeks to catch up but the 200 staff transferred have provided a few problems,
notably with absences. Long term sickness accounts for two whole crews and
absences peaked at 17·3% even before Omicron struck - far higher than
expected and the average of other boroughs.
The plan to have more rounds with smaller crews caused Councillors some concern
because drivers will have additional responsibilities.
Councillor Val Clark (Conservative, Falconwood & Welling) said that the crews
that serve her ward are “the awkward squad” and the assisted collection service
is “unacceptable”. About 5% of collections fall into the assisted category.