| PETER SHIRLEY All good plans laid to waste
been quite explicit that they will now tailor particular services to areas where they could be most effective.
Neighbourhoods whose recycling rates are high may have a greater range of materials collected. Some could trial food waste recycling while others might get a community compost site.
Those who throw the most into the general waste stream, the stuff sent to landfill or the incinerator, will presumably get visits from the waste reduction officers.
And neighbourhoods whose black bins are routinely half-empty as a result of the reduce-and-recycle drive may only get them emptied every other week. It sounds great. Why should the city’s million-plus inhabitants get exactly the same waste service?
Well, one person who seems to think so is Environment Secretary Michael Gove who, it is reported, having watched the impact of plastic garbage on marine life in the BBC’s magnificent Blue Planet II series decided he must do something.
There is going to be a new raft of policies to increase recycling and cut out single use plastics like drinking straws and fizzy drink bottles.
He is also going to tackle the patchwork of council waste and recycling schemes. He is annoyed that many areas do not collect plastics for recycling at all.
But he is planning to look at making “local authority recycling schemes as consistent as possible”.
So instead of a uniform waste collection service across the city of Birmingham, he is now talking about one across the country.
THERE’S been a bit more fuss surrounding the tortuous selection of 101 Labour candidates for the May council elections.
The case of veteran councillor Tony Kennedy, who failed to win selection in Balsall Heath West, has hit the national headlines as an example of the rise of Momentum, picking off established Labour councillors across the country.
The trouble is that this sort of shenanigans has been going on for years, including during the New Labour period when many on the left had walked off in a huff to join Respect with George Galloway or Socialist Labour or any of the other offshoots.
In fact Cllr Kennedy has personal experience of this having been voted out of Aston in 2004 and controversially sidestepped a potentially tricky battle in his current Sparkbrook ward in 2015.
Also in 2004 was the so-called ‘night of the long knives’ in Handsworth Wood, which saw three sitting councillors, including two cabinet members, booted out.
Meanwhile, back in 2017 Momentum have not had a clear run in Birmingham where many sitting councillors have survived challenges, although a few have clearly not. So talk of the revolution here may be premature.
Would the framed pictures of former leaders Sir Albert Bore and Lord Whitby make more than a fiver?
STAFF at Birmingham’s Council House were greeted by the bizarre sight of two bailiffs storming around offices wielding a court order while ticking off items needed to cover a £5,000 debt.
It seemed to generate more questions than answers.
Such as when will the episode of Can’t Pay We’ll Take It Away be screened?
Are the antique rickety wooden seats with ripped upholstery in the committee rooms worth anything?
Would the framed pictures of former leaders Sir Albert Bore and Lord Whitby (now in storage obviously) make more than a fiver?
Did the council try to offset the debt by offering the hard working debt enforcement officers a cuppa at the Civic Catering prices?... £13 for a plate of biscuits.
Were they, indeed, directed to the audit committee to wake everyone up?
And did they reject the council’s IT system after finding out it was worth about 50p off eBay?