Above poster explains how to dispose of post Christmas REAL trees and wreathes.
You can check your individual collection arrangements by clicking this link
More on Christmas & New Year refuse collection
Fresh light shed on York’s mysterious QUANGOs
Some of the affairs of York’s taxpayer funded but independently managed organisation are to be subject to public review next week. The Councils first comprehensive “Shareholder” committee meeting is to look at the results being obtained by several organisations.
These include
- Make it York (The tourism and marketing body)
- Veritau Ltd – An audit body
- City of York Trading – A recruitment and temporary staff agency
- Yorwaste/SJB Recycling (Process local waste and refuse)
In the past these bodies have been subject to intermittent “light” scrutiny with many background details contained in “confidential” annexes. Several private annexes are still being reported to next Tuesday’s meeting but fewer than in the past
The meeting is being chaired by Cllr Nigel Ayre who was also responsible for bringing into the public domain reports on the Councils major contracts letting processes.
Make it York (MIY) plans to appoint a new post of “Head of Commercial and Revenue Generation” at a basic salary of £60,000 a year. Performance bonuses could bring the remuneration up to £80.000 pa. MIY failed to recruit to the post at a lower salary earlier in the year. The post has the objective of increasing MIY’s revenues over time such that the company can, in the first instance, become self-funding (relieving the council of its ongoing financial contribution to the business) and, beyond that, increasing the sums available to reinvest in the city.
It is unclear how potential conflicts between commercial targets and York’s traditional values will be reconciled. There have been too many disputes between local traders, visitors and residents in the past few years.
Separately MIY reports an expected £248,063 loss in the year. This is 6304 above budget expectations. Increased overheads are blamed together with poor merchandise sales in the tourist centre. The organisations new Chair Greg Dyke is due to take over the role in January.
The report touches on the Christmas Market and ongoing difficulties with access for traders (see below).
Veritau Ltd, a company jointly owned by North Yorkshire County Council and the City of York Council, wants to expand. It hopes in future to provide audit services for several additional Council and other public bodies.
City of York Trading Ltd (trading principally as WorkwithYork and WorkwithSchools) was formed in 2011 with the intention of supplying temporary staff to CYC, to schools (in and around the York area) and to other outside organisations. Through City of York Trading Ltd, the reductions in cost to CYC and the return of the profit achieved are designed to assist CYC’s financial position. If CYC had to source staff in the open market, the cost would be substantially higher than current rates paid to the Company.
Unfortunately the reports from this organisation continue to be largely opaque. The shareholder committee is being asked to approve a business plan which is enclosed in a confidential annex. Similarly, the committee is being asked to endorse the appointment of a n additional company director but without the name of the candidate being revealed.
The net cost/return to the Council of this body is not revealed.
Yorwaste/SJB Recycling. The York Council owns 23% of this company. Yorwaste operates Waste Transfer Stations (WTS), Materials Recycling Facilities (MRF), Green Waste Composting, and HWRCs for both NYCC and CYC. It also manages the closed landfill aftercare obligations at several sites including Harewood Landfill (which closed to general waste in March of this year). SJB currently operates three sites (based at Yorkshire Water waste plants) providing green waste composting services to local authorities.
The company is forecasting a loss of over £300,000 on the year. The company blames the impact of a facility closure (Seamer); external commodity prices; and two waste fires for the downturn in its fortunes.
SJB is forecasting a reduced level of profit (£159,000). With 2 of its three operational sites closing it is heavily dependent on achieving a new contract before the end of the year.
York exports plastic waste
The York Council exported 224 tonnes of plastic waste last years.
All went to accredited licensed facilities through the DTS Trading copnay
In 2019 mixed plastic bottles were sent to UK and Spain accredited polymer washing and sorting plants. The EU have the same environmental regulations as the UK
Fly tipping gone
Fly tipping near the clothes banks at the Acomb Wood Drive shopping area has now been removed. The Council acted promptly to address the issue following our report last week. There is space in the banks for more clothes now.
Recycling bins overflowing at shopping centre
We hope that the various charities which have clothes and shoe banks at various locations around the City will check that they are not full. The Christmas period tends to be a busy one for recycling. It is frustrating for residents who try to do the right thing and give the clothes to a good cause.
NB. The Council are making their final green bin emptying collections in most areas this week. Green bin emptying will start again in April
Good time to secure your recycling
The Council said yesterday (Tuesday) that it had failed to collect recycling from Tedder Road and Slessor Road. They blamed a vehicle breakdown.
The Council says that they will call back to collect the recycling on SATURDAY.
We suspect that message may have not got back to residents. Most have left their recycling on the street. Normally this might not matter – if it was secured from wind and animal attacks – but with the arrival of “Mischief Night” we think residents would be wise to put the recycling in a secure place.
Often the Council says that it will catch up with collections on the next working day; but not in this case. This is confusing for residents.
It does raise several questions about how effective the Councils communications channels are. Failings in the waste collection service this summer have been so frequent it almost requires a daily update from them using all social media channels.
The Council might also issue regular updates indicating when more reliable vehicles, with adequate capacity, will be delivered.
Missed bin updates are posted on this link (click) at around 5:00pm each day
Useful guide to recycling plastics in York published by St Nicks
£352,475 spent on waste collection IT system
The York Council has agreed to spend over £1/3 million on an “integrated Waste Management System & In-Cab Solution” computer system for its waste collection operation.
The contract was let in July to Webaspx
The system gets only a passing reference in a report being considered today on waste collection options.
There has been no report or business case presented to an executive decision session to indicate the expected benefits of the new computer system.
The waste collection service has been subject to considerable criticism recently with bins not being emptied on virtually every day of the week.
The main cause of the fall in service standards have been an aging and unreliable fleet. On some occasions the amount of recycling put out has exceeded the capacity of the existing vehicles.
The Council has remained tight lipped about when (or even if) new refuse lorries will arrive in the City.
Waste collection review in York
Against the background of chronic unreliability on refuse collections in the City, it was hoped that a long outstanding review would offer some hope of improvement.
The review report has now been published (click).
The report starts by saying “Decisions about waste collection methodology impact upon the specification of replacement waste vehicles, the replacement of which is imperative to the sustainability of the service”
In truth, new vehicles should have been purchased months ago. They weren’t and as a result breakdown are a major cause of the decline in reliability standards. The report offers little hope of early, decisive action.
The report concludes that separate food waste collection is not necessary. This is because food waste forms part of the anaerobic digestion process at the Allerton processing site. It is part of a process which results in power being generated from waste.
Similar arguments are advanced against the mixed collection of recyclables.
The report talks about a further review of recycling bring banks “to stop collecting the same materials as door step collection, but focus on materials not collected at the door step” The authors seems to be oblivious to the fact that many residents are forced to use the bring banks because of lack of capacity in the doorstep service.
“The current recycling arrangements are that Yorwaste process the recylclates at the Harewood Whin Material Recycling Facility and sell the products to market. The current gross cost of recycling is £725k however this is offset by the recyclate sales that total c£600k”.
The report fails to identify the “lead in time” for the purchase of new vehicles. There are no milestones. It lacks any analysis of the number of missed bin collections or their causes. It fails to say when sustained improvement could be expected.
Altogether it amounts a bit of public posturing with no apology to the taxpayers who are being inconvenienced each day by vehicle breakdowns and trucks reaching their capacity limits.
Daily reports on missed bin collections can be found via this link click
More missed bins
Council needs to “come clean” about the extent of its resourcing problems
Another day and another raft of missed bin collections.
Mostly the failures are down to inadequate staffing, unreliable vehicles and full lorries.
Yet the Council has so far failed to say when replacement vehicles will arrive in the city.
…and there is a growing suspicion that other services are being depleted in a desperate attempt to plug the gaps in the waste collection service. One estate still has litter strewn around from collections which took place weeks ago.
