A local resident wrote to the Wimbledon Guardian about Merton's Labour-run council scrapping weekly bin collections. Below is the reply of Councillor Daniel Holden, Conservative Spokesman for the Environment:
P Newman is absolutely right (‘Wheelie bins’, 23 June 2016). Residents have not been consulted about the radical changes being proposed to their waste collection service.
As well as rolling out multiple wheelie bins to households across the borough, Merton Labour are ending weekly rubbish collections, despite clearly promising at the 2014 council elections to maintain the weekly collection.
This will have far reaching consequences for everyone living in our borough with household waste having to be sorted into four - and possibly five - different containers, clogging up kitchens, front gardens and street fronts. Yet Labour have made no proper assessment of the impact for residents; especially the elderly, disabled and those living in smaller and terraced homes.
Nor would Labour councillors listen to the concerns raised by me and my Conservative colleagues at the Sustainable Communities scrutiny meeting on 9 June. Despite a worrying lack of clarity about the financial savings these changes will deliver, all Labour members voted down our motion calling on the Labour administration to think again and to find alternative savings to maintain the weekly bin service. Instead they simply waved through the proposals.
Whatever spin they put on it, Labour are breaking their own manifesto commitment to protect this service.
Conservatives will of course continue to challenge the council to deliver a value for money waste collection system that works for residents, both at the 13th July Council meeting and through the call in process.
Unfortunately however - just as with recent cuts to adult social care and the £5million of savings that Labour have failed to deliver - it is Merton's residents who are again paying the price for Labour’s mismanagement.