The Labour party has rejected the chance to give local residents, and residents groups, the chance to hold Veolia to account for its failure to keep Merton clean.
At council on 12th September the Labour party voted unanimously against a Conservative motion that would have given real power to local residents to ensure that Veolia hit their targets. Over the summer Veolia has continued to fail in its task of keeping our streets clean, the number of missed bin collections has increased by a third, the target for removing detritus from our streets has not been hit since April, and 25% of sites were considered to be below standard for litter collection in June and July.
Councillor Daniel Holden, Shadow Cabinet Member for Environment, said:
“At council Labour was offered a way of establishing a cross party, politically neutral panel, to address the serious poor performance of Veolia that has caused so much distress to Merton residents.
Our proposal was open, transparent and honest, it would have put local residents in the driving seat and improved performances. Instead Merton Labour chose to ignore the concerns of the people of Merton. Veolia’s performance is unacceptable, multiple bin collections are missed, and every week we see huge piles of rubbish strewn across our streets.
Labour have shown themselves to be unable to make Veolia stick to the contract that has cost taxpayers millions. In addition to our filthy streets, Labour have pushed ahead with an unwanted wheelie bin roll out, ignoring the views of residents who do not want their collections cut to every two weeks, do not want the council to store its waste on their properties, and do not want their front gardens ruined by these ugly unnecessary bins.
Last night I handed the Conservative petition against the new bins into council, I hope the council listen to the voice of the people of Merton and stop this unnecessary, unwanted change to our waste collection.”