Comfort in misery for months over garbage pile-up
CONCERNED RESIDENT
THERE HAS been no garbage collection in Comfort district, central Manchester, for more than two months. I visited the local office in Mandeville four weeks ago and was told that collection would be resumed that week. We did not!
I gave them an extra week, but still there was no collection. I then visited the office again on November 7, 2016, to complain, and I was told that the truck was currently in the Melrose Housing Scheme (very close to Comfort) and that our garbage would be collected on Thursday, November 10.
There was a time in the past when Melrose HS would benefit from collection every week religiously, while months would pass before Comfort and Broadleaf districts got theirs. I had to call the head office and Central Manchester Member of Parliament Peter Bunting’s office to get our collection.
Fast-track to Thursday, November 10: still no collection as promised. I visited the office the following day, demanding to speak to the dispatcher for the area. He maintained that we would get collection on Tuesday, November 15. Again, no collection.
HOUSING SCHEMES PRIORITISED
I would generally blame the National Solid Waste Management Authority office, but now I’m specifically laying most of the blame on the dispatcher as it’s painfully obvious that housing schemes and neighbourhoods are prioritised over communities.
Dispatchers would not dare have garbage pile up for months in wealthy neighbourhoods. Though these neighbourhoods might also have collection problems now and again, the period is nowhere as long as ours has been in Comfort.
Garbage has been littering the roads and homes of Comfort. There is a bauxite road, which is no longer being used, which residents use to dump rubbish. Also, some residents are now disposing of their garbage in gullies behind their homes.
Residents have to be picking up garbage because dogs are having their way at the overcrowded bins. Now, Mr Dispatcher, Comfort residents pay taxes, too, and not just residents of the Melrose Housing Scheme. Comfort residents vote in elections and not just residents of the Melrose Housing Scheme.
This upcoming local election, the matter of steady garbage collection should be of paramount significance on the agenda of the Manchester Parish Council. I don’t wish to hear any excuses with regard to trucks being broken down. All communities matter. I know they do when it comes to general and local government elections.