Over-complications and underfunding

In last week’s issue residents were urged to report missing bin collections. Why is this necessary at all?

Naomi Markham, the ‘council’s waste strategy manager’ (surely a misnomer if ever there was one!) asked residents to report a missed bin within two days, but if your bin has not been emptied for two weeks how can you be certain what your ‘scheduled’ collection day is?

It is now over three months since Serco introduced new routes, but there has been no wholesale change in the number of properties in the borough or on the whole, the location of the bins for collection, so why are they being missed?

Serco introduced new routes to cut costs – they under-bid to get the contract then fail to provide the service.

‘Forced to pull out of an out-of-hours contract in Cornwall for GP services’, false accounting for the offender tagging and ‘Serco – which has failed to trace 30 per cent of contacts gets new contract for immigation centres’ – and so the headlines

go on.

Still they are failing to adhere to social distancing at Stafferton Way waste site with adjacent parking bays in use.

William Alexander (Viewpoint, November 20) is right - what has happened to the public scrutiny?

What penalty do the council face for the debacle over failed bin collections?

Will the people who awarded the contract to Serco resign?

Will the council compensate those people whose bins were not collected for four weeks? I think your readers are clever enough to guess the answer!

Yes, John Walsby (Viewpoint, November 20), I was on the opposite side of the road to the memorial on my way to an appointment on Remembrance Day and as the Union Flag was lowered the four construction workers got up from their break on the bench adjacent to the council house and returned to the building site. ‘Lest we Forget’ indeed!

MERVYN BUSTON

East Road Maidenhead