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News and Comment March 2022

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15 March (Part 1) - Beautiful Belvedere. Huh!!

Belvedere translates to “Beautiful view” and parts of it struggle to live up to that reputation.

When Serco ran the bin collection services I always found myself out on a limb by saying that they were reliable and invariably tidy in my street and if you can believe Councillor Craske - does anybody? - I am out on a limb again by saying that CountryStyle and Rubbish are two inextricably linked words. The nearby communal paper bin is again inaccessible because its opening is placed against a wall.

Why are the plastics and glass bins never affected? Presumably served by a more thoughtful collector.

Maybe my opinion of CountryStyle is not totally unique because a petition aimed at ending their ten year contract has popped up at change.org. If you read on you will see it covers a multitude of other subjects including Orbit housing and Network Rail so its intent is not what one might call focused.

It begins by alleging that CountryStyle are particularly bad in Slade Green, Erith and Belvedere and goes on to suggest that “people are generally more respectful in Bexley, Sidcup and Albany Park”.

The petition starter, named as Aaron Burtt, may have a point. ‘My’ paper bin contained a large plastic sack yesterday filled with I know not what. If the lock and hinge was not left broken it would not have been possible for it to get there but someone living close to me has no social conscience.

I despair about the lack of respect and pride in anything commonly encountered in this neck of the woods and maybe elsewhere. When my neighbour of eight years moved out last August they left their place in such a state that it was two months before the house could be reoccupied.

As the new family moved in a child’s toy dropped on to their front path and it lay there broken for a month or two before it annoyed me sufficiently to pick it up and put it in the bin. Maybe I should explain that the garden layout is such that their path looks as though it could be mine and I see it every time I leave the house and could use it as a short cut.

Bin lidIt was me who showed them, a family of six, how to apply for a bigger green bin and until it arrived they used a black plastic tub as an overflow. Before Christmas it blew over and rolled into my garden and I left it there to see how long it would be before it was retrieved. After another two or three weeks another wind took it down the road never to be seen again.

However the lid remains where it first lay and is passed every day by its owner who simply couldn’t care less. The grass you see is my neighbour’s but only I have cut it since 2006. That is a fact.

Yesterday morning their sewer blocked again and I spent half an hour prodding bloody sanitary towels with a hose pipe. It seems I am condemned to live next to an open sewer because Thames Water have no legal sanctions in their armoury and some people are happy to live uncivilised lives as long as someone else cleans up after them.

Aaron Burtt definitely has a point, Belvedere does seem to have more than its fair share of the irresponsible. 

 

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