Call for cash back over bin collection changes
Residents in Cowpe are up in arms about new hard-to-reach home bin collections. From left: Chris Chadwick , Stuart Crabtree, Ian Chester, resident and councillor Karl Kempson, Janice Morton and Dawn Chadwick
ANGRY residents have demanded a council tax rebate ahead of ‘outrageous’ changes to waste collections for nearly 200 hard-to-reach homes.
Council bosses have deemed some 188 Valley homes unsafe for a doorstep collection, with owners sent letters notifying them of a switch to a ‘lane end’ bin round service from Monday, September 30.
ANGRY residents have demanded a council tax rebate ahead of ‘outrageous’ changes to waste collections for nearly 200 hardto-reach homes.
Some 188 Valley homes have been deemed unsafe for a doorstep collection, with owners sent letters notifying them of a switch to a ‘lane end’ bin round service from Monday, September 30.
Rossendale council says it comes after the Health and Safety Executive advised all councils to review their operations.
But Dawn Chadwick, of Lench Fold Clough, near Cowpe, said the new system is impractical as they will need to take their refuse down a steep lane to their designated collection point.
She said: “My property is 0.19 miles away and it’s a 118ft elevation, which I will have to carry my refuse down at 6.45 in the morning. We are all being told to put them adjacent to some terraced houses on Cowpe Road. One of the ladies who lives near works 12-hour shifts and how is she going to get her litter there for 6.45 when she’s saving lives for the NHS? The stories are just endless, it’s beyond belief.
“I’ve been to see the neighbours to say ‘When I drop my four bags off next week please don’t have a go at me’.”
Residents will be provided with purple sacks for general household waste, blue sacks for glass, cans and plastics, and green sacks for paper and cardboard.
Dawn’s letter states that the following safety considerations have been taken into account: a minimum turning circle of 23 metres - clear of obstructions - at the end of a dead end road, minimum road width of five metres and bearing strength adequate for a 26-tonne vehicle, acceptable road surface, no soft verges on narrow roads, no risk from overhanging or projecting trees/bushes, and no excessive gradients.
Dawn added: “I would like them to know from a health and safety point of view how I’m meant to get it down there.
“Because they come every fortnight, where am I storing these for up to two weeks of rubbish? I don’t want it in my car.
“I’ve got two daughters who are 17 and 19 who both have boyfriends who spend time over at weekends. I work in the polythene industry and I’m big on recycling everything, but I would say we generate a lot of litter. This 30-micron bag is not sufficient for me to carry it down the lane. I think it’s ludicrous.”
Dawn is in council tax band F and says some neighbours are on G or H - facing bills of more than £3,000 per year, and thinks they deserve a discount.
She added: “We don’t have streetlights because we are on an unadopted lane. What are we paying for? Had we got a rebate, all of us could look at an independent supplier.
“There will be a lot of people who don’t even know this is going to happen. My neighbour told me and I went to see three other neighbours and they hadn’t read it properly either.”
Another Cowpe resident, who wished not to be named, said: “The access arrangements to our properties have not changed in decades and, as far as I am aware, noone has ever been harmed getting to the six houses that are at the end of our road. These are outrageous, bully-boy tactics.
“Without consultation, discussion or warning, they have slapped hundreds of residents with formal legal notices that can only be appealed at a magistrates court and used that old chestnut of health and safety as justification. As people living by the roadside will soon find out, it is rubbish and it stinks.”
A council spokesperson said: “We sympathise with all residents affected by these changes.
“After the Health and Safety Executive advised all Councils and waste collection companies to review their operations, we commissioned a health and safety specialist to carry out an assessment at all hard-to-reach properties within the borough.
“If access arrangements are improved we are happy to re-assess individual situations. We do also run an assisted collection service for those residents who are unable to get their bins to the collection point for health reasons and this will continue to be the case.”