7 March (Part 2) - They win, you lose. It’s the Bexley way
A lady from Bromley was telling me how she found a dead fox on the private
road which serves the garage at the back of her garden. She phoned the Council
and they came and collected it. “That’ll cost you” I said to which the reply was “No”.
I looked it up on bromley.gov.uk and sure enough their
dead animal service is free. Normally
they ask that the body is put in a sack and left on the footpath from which they
will collect when notified but on this occasion they went beyond the call of duty.
Bexley by contrast will charge £75 for the same thing. How much less is the
Council Tax in Bromley?
At the very moment I was looking at Bexley’s dead fox page the following slightly related email popped up
Hope you are on the mend. [Thanks but it was deferred.]
Just had a chat with a neighbour who had an interesting time with the Council regarding garden waste. On Wednesday his mum’s
garden waste was not collected. He checked the Council’s website and it said “garden waste - not out”.
Doesn’t appear to be a way to report a missed collection online anymore so he called the garden waste hotline and was told they would
have to email proof that the bins were put out. Pretty much impossible to do after the fact so
it couldn’t be done.
You could try it yourself. Just say you put the bin out but it wasn’t collected. They will say it was not
out. Then see what they suggest.
Residents are now filming each other putting the bins out. What have we come to?
A surveillance dictatorship? I had wondered how Cabinet Member Richard Diment could
claim that 99·9% of bins are collected. Simply dismiss reports of missed bins presumably.
In my own situation I have no idea how they would be able to tell if a bin
had been put out or not. As described in numerous parking reports, I share a
frontage of only 16 feet with a neighbour. With four bins out it’s not
possible to tell theirs from mine. Any distinguishing registered code number the bins may
once have had is long since gone as the bins get muddled (by the bin men)
along the street. My neighbour used to have a 240 litre green bin but it has been
140 for a long time. This causes an overflow into my bin which would
otherwise be near empty. On top of that my neighbour never remembers to put
his bins out so it is me who does it. And I am not particular about which order I line them up in.
There is no way the bin men can tell which belongs to who. (Clue, the smelly one is not mine!)
Fortunately the bins never seem to get missed or Richard might end up in my bad
books. Short of photographing the bin next to the same day’s newspaper I’m
not sure how one proves it was out on time. No, even that won’t work. The bin
could’ve been put out late and in any case the EXIF data in digital photographs is easily edited.
This looks like another case of Council wins, you lose to me. That is exactly how Bexley likes it.
Note: My three, occasionally four, tame foxes last showed up together just after Christmas. Two would eat out of
my hand. Then they all simply disappeared. No idea why. Saves me a fortune in cheap chicken legs!