York Councillor Mark Warters has suggested that empty York Council owned properties should be cleared, cleaned and used to provide additional hospital space should it be necessary.
Available empty properties include the brand new James House (which was due to open this month), Oakhaven and Willow House. The latter are former care homes.
The properties could be used to supplement existing NHS hospitals. It is possible that additional space will be required for services such as pre and post illness infection testing.
Separately, it has been suggested that the Council be ready to reintroduce regular skip visits to local neighbourhoods. These would reduce the pressures on waste collection services where staffing levels are currently under pressure.
Skips visited many estates until about 5 years ago when the service stopped.
Their return could provide an alternative if uncollected waste causes a public health concern.
The Council are recruiting waste collection drivers and loaders now. Find out more by calling 01904 554234 or visiting www.workwithyork.co.uk/jobs
Street cleansing issues also increase following holiday break
The Council says that the volume of recycling put out today on the west of the City exceeded the capacity of its collection vehicles. Their waste update website can be viewed by clicking here They hope to catch up tomorrow(Wednesday)
We’ve submitted numerous reports of litter across the area. This may partly be due to insecure recycling arrangements.
Hopefully residents will help to get the area looking smart again by undertaken some volunteer litter picks.
The Council said yesterday (Tuesday) that it had failed to collect recycling from Tedder Road and Slessor Road. They blamed a vehicle breakdown.
Notice on Council web site Tuesday 29th October 2019
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.
Recycling awaiting collection
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
We’ve reported the overgrowing thorn bush which is obstructing the entrance to the Chesney Field cycle track
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.
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.
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 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.
Today’s failure report reveals that green waste wasn’t collected from part of the Heworth area because of inadequate “vehicle capacity”
Daily reports on missed bin collections can be found via this link click
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.
No post recycling litter pick today (or for some time)Many litter bins are overflowing
Collections were missed in the Thoresby Road part of
Westfield Ward today. A vehicle fault was blamed
Council officials have now written to concerned Councillors about
the chronic unreliability of the bin emptying service. It has gone in 3 short
years from being one of the most praised public services in the city to one of the
most criticised.
Pressures on the service have contributed to an increase in
litter drift in many areas with post round tidy up sometimes being missed out.
Officials say the problems are mainly caused by “an
ageing fleet (directly linked to breakdowns), driver shortages and staff
sickness”
“When the service is under pressure, we prioritise
household waste collections followed by recycling and then garden waste”
“We are in the process of a wholescale fleet replacement.
In the 10 years since the last vehicles were purchased the city has expanded so
we need to account for this, however York is a historical city which is both
beautiful and incredibly difficult to service in some areas when it comes to
waste collection. I want to ensure that the next fleet of vehicles are capable
of serving all areas of the city in the safest possible way. Health and safety
for staff and residents is top of our agenda”.
“Staffing the service will continue to be a challenge,
particularly when it comes to HGV drivers. This is a national problem and
experienced by our surrounding Council areas. However, this is also exacerbated
in York as we simply don’t have the industries to support this. However, we are
investing significantly in developing our own staff through apprenticeship
programmes and development opportunities. Working on the frontline in all
weather is not a job for the faint hearted. One of the reasons that ‘new’ staff
turnover is high is that people underestimate how demanding the job is”.
Unfortunately the service does not seem to have published an
improvement programme with milestones. No figures are produced indicating the
number of bins that aren’t emptied each day, so it is impossible to test whether
the claimed “improvement trajectory” is a reality.
Critically officials are staying tight lipping about when
new vehicles are expected in the City or indeed if they have even been ordered.
Many will be surprised that adequate spare resources did not form part of the original vehicle leasing deal.
In other parts of the world more automation has been tried with mixed results
Been a horrible day for the Council with many more missed bin collections.
Recycling collections were missed in Haxby, New Earswick, Strensall and Wigginton.
Green waste bins weren’t emptied in Haxby, Wigginton and Strensall. The bins not emptied in Woodthorpe on Tuesday still haven’t been collected.
Household waste wasn’t collected in part of Holgate (blocked access).
Sources inside the Council point to continuing difficulties in recruiting staff including drivers. There has still not been any statement from the Council leadership about this issue or why replacement vehicles haven’t been introduced into the fleet.
More streets in York have not had their refuse, recycling and garden waste collected today.
Areas affected included Dringhouses (Middlethorpe), Bishopthorpe, Acomb, Chapelfields, Tang Hall and Lockwood Street
Some residents have called for the service to be “outsourced” (privatised).
Until the Council is more candid about the causes of its current problems, then it is difficult to know whether different management arrangements would lead to a more reliable service.
York Councillor Mark Warters has suggested that empty York Council owned properties should be cleared, cleaned and used to provide additional hospital space should it be necessary.
