20 August (Part 3) - Fly tipping. Whatever Bexley Council might say, it’s getting worse
At a Council meeting not very long ago someone said that Bexley planned to put all their Freedom of Information responses on line. It’s obviously a good idea as it might reduce duplicate questions but I not only failed to report it on the blog, I forgot all about it - until this afternoon.
I
hunted around to see if I could find anything and the new page showed up at
http://www.bexley.gov.uk/foidisclosurelog. It seems that Mr. Barnbrook’s
questions are but a very small proportion of the total.
One question that caught my eye was simply entitled ‘Fly-tipping’ and dated 7th July.
As far as I can see, Bexley is the fly tipping capital of South East London but the Council denies it.
Cabinet Member Don Massey is not bothered about it and
Cabinet Member Peter Craske thinks it is Labour’s fault for encouraging it. They
are the fly tippers’ friend according to his fevered imagination.
The Deputy Director for Fly Tipping, David Bryce-Smith who should know about
these thing reported to the Places Scrutiny meeting in July that
fly tipping was not getting worse, the cuts to recycling
services and reduced street cleaning was having no effect.
So what did the FOI response say?
Year, Reports and Approximate Cost of Removal
2010 - 1,295 - £39,000
2011 – 1,381 - £41,000
2012 – 1,343 - £40,000
2013 – 1,477 - £44,000
2014 – 1,965 - £60,000
2015 – 2,320 - £70,000
So somebody has been fibbing, well it is Bexley after all!
Fly tipping reports have been getting steadily worse and the cost of removal is
twice what it was only five years ago.
Does the FOI Disclosure Log mean that I can never have a day off from BiB? There
should always be something enlightening or surprising there to fill a slow news day.
Note: The picture above is not the same as
that shown on 12th August.
The heap has acquired a bed.