25 February (Part 2) - The Grand Old Duke of York
At
this evening’s Cabinet Meeting Councillor Peter Craske went through his
carefully rehearsed speech on recycling frequencies.
The man in charge of bins told us how residents had forecast that changes would
cause a plague of maggots to descend on Bexley and the recycling rate would fall
if the plans were implemented and then revealed, like the showman he is, that he
was referring back to 2007 and none of those things had come true, far from it.
Councillor Craske expertly dismantled the consultation responses that said
Bexley would stink as it became submerged in a sea of rotting food because
no one was suggesting that food waste would no longer be collected weekly
and residents had got him all wrong.
Going to three weekly collections would save nearly a million pounds a year he
proudly proclaimed getting ever redder as he built his speech towards its climax.
He said that a great deal of food was currently ending up in the green bins and how the recycling rate could rise from
50% to 60% if only more residents could be forced into recycling food properly and that might happen if the green bins were emptied less frequently.
I wrote a Tweet to say that Bexley was going three weekly for its green bins and my finger hovered
over the Send button, but then he did it. Crashed his gearbox straight into reverse.
He was sticking with the status quo on residual waste (green bin) collections.
Quite clearly someone had got at him or he was outvoted by the Luddites alongside him.
The Finance Director said the decision could hit all Council taxpayers in the wallet.
It’s not often one feels sorry for the old blogger but there is no denying that
all the best ideas have come from him in the past couple of years. This time he
has not been able to carry his blinkered colleagues with him.