FOLLOWING A cash bonanza the Blackpool Promenade is now starting to look fit for a modern society, but one thing that locals and visitors both complain about is the lack of sufficient rubbish bins.
A report came out in June suggesting that Blackpool had the fourth dirtiest streets in the North West, and in July the council announced that it had hosed a whopping £4m on keeping the streets clean so far this year – a figure that defies belief given the state of some of the pavements week in, week out.
Keeping a town like Blackpool clean is a never ending battle and it’s probably a bit unfair to haul the council over the coals for not picking up every scrap of litter in a town stuffed with drunks every weekend. One thing they could do, as I touched on in the intro, is place more highly visible and high capacity litter bins around the town because what few bins there are end up overflowing and people end up with a choice of whether to carry their litter or throw it on the floor.
It appears the council may now have picked up the ball on this issue, because as of yesterday there is a giant new recycling bin across the road from Blackpool FC. This is the kind of bin I would like to see deployed in prominent areas. Get one on St. John’s Square. Get several on the promenade in addition to current bins. Get one near Coral Island/McDonalds and similarly near the KFC further down Bank Hey Street.
Maybe this is their intention – I certainly hope so.
Perhaps now the council has realised that part of the success of Spanish holiday resorts – aside from the weather – is that they are kept clean as a routine. Anyone who has been to a Spanish resort will tell you that the street cleaners come out in force every night in order to ensure the place is clean and tidy for the next day. Anyone who has been to Blackpool will tell you that they don’t and if the town wishes to attract the kind of affluent people for whom standards of cleanliness are important then this needs to change.
I think these new bins should be deployed in residential areas too. I stayed in Spain last year in a villa reportedly worth over €1m surrounded by similar properties. Yet literally ten metres down that street there was a huge old fashioned bottle bank and two communal rubbish bins. They are collected weekly by a big truck with a grabber on the back: it picks the bin up, empties it into the truck, and places it back on the street. Mind-blowingly simple and efficient.
Why did I mention the value of the property? Because unlike in Britain where in even the poorest areas everyone’s a NIMBY, the Spaniards have realised that they don’t want to pay insane local tax so their local authorities can employ lots of staff, buy lots of wheelie bins, buy various enforcement paraphernalia (“your bin is contaminated” stickers) and start slashing their refuse collection frequency. They just want a decent service that doesn’t end up ruling your life like the service in most of Britain does.
I believe their refuse collection is mostly operated by private sector firms which explains why rather than have a truck with a driver and two bin men straggling behind it picking up lots of small bins and wielding health and safety forms that say they can’t lift more than 10,000kg of refuse in a day, the Spaniards have a truck with one person in it and big bins everywhere that the truck can pick up itself.
Think of the benefits. No more wheelie bins. No more costly printing of ‘contamination’ stickers. Less staff needed. Unlimited waste can be disposed of. More frequent pickups.
In a town that clearly does have a problem with cleanliness, perhaps it’s time to stop spunking money into Cllr Fowler’s BIG CAT and start thinking of radically shaking up the way refuse is dealt with.
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The other point about collections in Spain is that, at least in some areas, the collections are made daily.
With these new bins, though, I wonder how successful they will be. We’re told that if just one collection of waste is ‘contaminated’, the entire lot has to be sorted manually or disposed of as general waste. How does that affect the new pre-sort bins?
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these bins probly wont work as they dont work anywhere else !!!!!!!!
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hahahaha
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You can imagine a UK adoption of this type of scheme though – bins outside someone’s property not emptied for weeks and rubbish piled all around it.
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I left the UK just over two years ago, moved over the water to that little rock – Isle of Man, they had only just started (not on all the Isle) this Recycling business and from could be seen they took the bins weekly and emptied them without any problems. I now live over the pond – Texas, there are two huge bins at either end of the condo complex which are emptied every 3 days. Absolutely everything is thrown in these bins from bottles,cartons, papers to furniture, the only recycling done is the food waste which is in every appartment sink. When back home I used to recycle everything and was very insistent with my family that this should be done, but from what I’ve seen it would appear that the UK have gone overboard for want of a better phrase and other parts of the world just want to get the rubbish (any rubbish) off the streets..
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Put Fowler into a bin with that scum whore: Wendy Lewis,both are suited to one another.
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Speaking of rubbish, heres a comment made by TB about wendy lewis:
“What this woman did was a vile and disgusting act and I don’t accept the pathetic ‘I was drunk’ argument. I am sick of hearing defence solicitors saying ‘My client was drunk and unaware of their actions’, well don’t get drunk then, know your limits its common sense. I am appalled she has walked free. The act in itself was vile and should have been punished harshly on its own and she assaulted a police officer. But then in court she was very abusive to war veterans and then skipped bail and went on the run and still got a suspended sentence, it defies belief. All this while Ian Stafford the knicker stealing ex-Mayor gets 2 years in prison despite the fact prior to his crime he had an impeccable record of serving his local community. What has Lewis ever done for the community? The injustice system in this country really is a total joke and this proves it. The Magistrates should be ashamed of themselves”
Well said TB,hey Phil,why not a thread on this woman and the farce of a decision by magistrates to let her off??
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What a great comment TB. Thanks Harold for posting it.
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I had to mate, it summed up the whole farce, May I suggest TB do an article??
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Thanks Harold, I forgot I had posted that, I might do an article, I have just been very busy with work the past few days, I might do one tonight after work.
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look forward to it TB!
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“Ian Stafford the Knickers stealing ex-Mayor” harmless twat and people over reacted didn’t they all he did is steal some underwear from someone’s washing line what a plonker.
That’s not true is it he broke into single women houses striped put the women’s underwear on then wanked of in it while still in these women’s houses and some of these women trusted him with keys to their property because he was working for them. As to prior to the crime some may say he hadn’t been caught abusing his trusted position in the community. Having said all that no he shouldn’t have gone to prison what was the point £1000 a day to keep him locked up did he really pose a threat to the community? Would prison help him in anyway? What does the local community get out of locking him away? The question is how would you punish him community service or a fine the women who have had the houses broken into perhaps should have some say in this after all they may be a tiny bit more untrusting and feel a tiny bit less safe in their homes.
As for Wendy Lewis again she is pond life and she is no use to society at all as far as I am aware however does she deserve to go to prison. After all it was victimless crime she hurt no one (other then kicking a policeman’s ankle) does this deserve a prison sentence.
“what was the point £1000 a day to keep him locked up did he really pose a threat to the community? Would prison help him in anyway? What does the local community get out of locking him away?”.
It is easy to say what should be done to her community sentence. She could spend the next how long going around the Wyre and Fylde with a bucket and a scrubbing brush cleaning war memorials up. Hopefully at the end of the community service she would have more of an appreciation of what these memorials stones are for and she may get some work ethic in her life (I know that’s last bits pushing it but you never know).
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Ian Stafford is my friend, lol
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So what you got on today Harold?????
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lol the question should be what am I ON today? lol
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Excellent comment interested.
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cant wait for your article tb, it will be a winner!
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Being unfortunate enough to live in North Shore, living in the centre of Landlord city, and actually owning my own house I feel I’m actually living in the middle of a landfill site. Because all the houses round me have been converted into flats, each house has up to 4 of each colour of bin ie up to 12 bins in each garden. Being typical “renters”, the people living in these flats don’t really care about what rubbish goes in which bin, or indeed if in a bin at all !!! Once one bin is full, they simply move on to the next one or if they can’t get to the next bin they simply throw it into their garden. I now have 6 blue bins in the alley behind my house which have been given a “naughty label” by the bin police …. they’ve now been there about 5 months. Even with 4 flats in a house, is there any need for so many bins? When the wind blows, all the bin lids blow open and in the morning the whole street is strewn with litter. I paid almost £4K to have my front garden converted into an off road parking space for my car however after strong winds, the rubbish has been known to be knee deep by my front door. The road cleaner who comes down my street in the early morning always says a cheery good morning to me as he merrily sweeps past the front of my property, leaving me with the job of then sorting and re-bagging the detritus from the neighbours. Surely a simple catch on the bins would cut down on the amount of rubbish blown from bins ?
Sorry, can’t go on any longer as it’s windy tonight and I need to once again clear the rubbish from the front of my property before I get “rubbished” into my house.
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I take pity on you,a friend of mine has a empty shop on Cookson St (red light area of Blackpool) spent quite a lot of money doing it up but his business was ruined with all the brothels putting people off from visiting his shop, anyhow he was served with a notice the other day for all the rubbish in his back yard from an environmental officer, these premises were immaculate at one point as he took great pride,turns out that other residents or scum have been throwing there bin bags and other rubbish over his wall into his yard as the shop was empty, and then some one has rung environmental health to complain, he rung them up and said it is not my rubbish,why don’t you come and rummage through the sacks as they maybe a clue to who has been dumping rubbish in my back yard,not our job sir,it is commercial premises so you are responsible for disposal of the rubbish yourself sir and it is also on private land on not on the highway,I know what my answer would have been, Ok then I will just throw the lot into the back ally then sir and then it does become your problem,maybe then you might root through the rubbish to see who is fly tipping. You can’t make it up he stands to be prosecuted if he does not clean it up and these arse holes cannot be bothered to investigate to see where the rubbish has come from. I suggested to him to advertise the shop in a men’s magazine as a potential brothel, now that Callow is turning a blind eye to this type of thing,even though it is one of the main thorough fares into Blackpool town centre
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Dave I am confident if you do an article on this issue, Phil would publish it.
You could join Phils hall of fame of article writers,lol
It currently stands at me and TB.
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Thanks for that vote of confidence Harold but I cannot compose a story as good as Phil, Leave it for the expert,my Grammar is awful and thankgod for spell checker.
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ok Dave but its the ideas behind it that matter.Theres are many people who are ‘grammar correct’ but cant explain the concepts,articulate the issues etc.I am sure Phil could correct any grammar issues anyway; I for one would be fascinated to read it, you do seem to have a lot to offer.
Regards H
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I was going to start brushing all the rubbish back onto the street but was informed that if I did I would be committing an offence. It would seem that once my neighbours rubbish enters my driveway it suddenly changes ownership and becomes mine ….. would the same apply if I took all this rubbish and deposited it at my local Claremont council offices ?
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