New paladin bins have been put in place Cliftonville West following an article in The Isle of Thanet News about issues with broken lids and overflowing rubbish.
After the article was published Cliftonville West councillors were contacted by many residents in the area, and posts were made to social media, about the lack of bin capacity in areas including Ethelbert and Northdown roads.
Councillors Alan Currie, Heather Keen and Harry Scobie made request to the council to deal with the issues.
Extra bins have now been placed at Northdown and Ethelbert roads which will be emptied at least twice a day. A focus on problem spots has also been requested by Cliftonville West councillors.
On top of the daily street cleansing, the council has set up a rolling rota for deep cleaning teams, they will operate three days per week and rotate around different areas tackling areas that need extra attention.
Cllr Alan Currie said Streetscene Enforcement also monitors the area for waste related anti- social behaviour such as fly tipping.
Cllr Currie said: “If safe and appropriate storage is possible, households are always issued a black waste bin or seagull proof bag for the normal weekly collection. However, there are still many households in the area who live in upper floor flats who cannot store bins or bags and rely on the communal bins.
“The huge amount of extra waste generated by households since the covid pandemic in 2020 continues to be a challenge for all councils and particularly areas such as Cliftonville West with so many high density flats sometimes with up to six families in a single house.
“Council resources are certainly stretched and since 2010 there has been a 60% funding cut by the Central Government to TDC.
“Recycling in the area – and elsewhere in Thanet – of course must improve and Cliftonville West Councillors continue to help and encourage residents to recycle their rubbish wherever possible. Following the recent purchase of 20 sealed recycling containers by TDC we have been assured that our ward will receive a fair share of them once they are issued.”
Why keep throwing rate payers money after bad ,give a contract to a private firm to patrol 🚓 the area and give on the spot fines,that will stop the dirty disgusting people .when the word gets around people will think twice about dropping litter,and don’t make it short term contract, then in 3 months time let the firm patrol all of thanet including the beaches, people will start using the bins or take the rubbish home then .
the locals will probably need to go on a course to show them how to use them ?
Are all areas going to get their bins emptied twice a day, or just the people that dont care about the area?!.
Glad my taxes are being wasted on rubbish that dont contribute to the system (not all).
‘However, there are still many households in the area who live in upper floor flats who cannot store bins or bags and rely on the communal bins.’ So why the heck aren’t landlords of HMOs required to provide a refuse area? Okay, so no legislative compulsion to do so, but it would be the sensible & decent thing to do.
And am I missing something … why is extra waste generated by households since the pandemic?
Yep you’re missing something,
When planning permission is/was given for the conversion of properties to flats or an hmo, there would have been the requirement for a refuse store considered appropriate by tdc.
So that becomes part of the planning permission. BUT
TDC planning do not check that the planning conditions are complied with and it’s not the job of building control . So conversions are sometimes completed without the refuse store being completed, the completed building or flats are sold off and the paperwork says all is in order. When it’s discovered things are not as they should be its too late.
Then you have occasions where the conditions are implemented but later the fire service considers them to be a hazard, so can’t be used.
Then you have changes to TDC collection services , so that where in the past refuse crews emptied bin stores , these days many are not and instead households are meant to put their refuse from the store on the kerb for collection, often one or more household did not and the refuse rotted in the store, in the end landlords and freeholders fed up of festering piles of s#*t in bin stores emptied them and sealed them up.
The upshot of the tangled web created is that the provision of paladin bins is just about the only practical response, which then exposes the issue of irresponsible residents , which no one in authority seems to want to accept or even attempt to deal with.
A potted summary of 23 years of my experience cliftonvilles refuse issue.
Hopefully it gives you a bit of insight.
Lc careful you’ve put yourself in the crosshairs there buddy…..TDC do not want people to know the truth!!
Not really, TDC know what’s happened as does anyone involved in the area over the years, if the residents had used the facilities as they should there wouldn’t be a problem. The issue with planning is the point where tdc failed but they just say they had/have no resources to ensure conditions are complied with, lots of examples all across the isle where developers know that they can do much as they like so long as they comply with building regs.
Hopefully if people understand how the issues arose and how the behaviour of residents is the primary problem , they’ll see that the paladin bins are the only realistic solution and that at the point that the biggest complaint about the council is that some of the lids are missing , then the only matter that really needs addressing is the behaviours of the residents, but seeing as no one wants to find them at faiult , perhaps we can draw a line under the matter and accept its got as good as its going to until such time as the whole area is gentrified and populated by more responsible residents.
To add to the above , the shenanigans indulged in for a while to make the missed collections data look better did nothing to help the area. I can only guess thatnthere had been some cost cutting in relation to the budget allocated to the “missed collection” system.
However that was a couple of years back and seems to have been addressed. But when the problems existed it left homes with piles of stinking rubbish that not surprisingly got dumped in the street in some cases.
You ask: Why is extra waste generated by households since the pandemic?
More people working from home, more people spending time at home, more home deliveries and online shopping, More takeaways, more packaging, more household waste.
What I was really puzzled about was this: ‘The huge amount of extra waste generated by households since the covid pandemic in 2020 continues to be a challenge for all councils.’ Why would there be EXTRA waste??
But you really break the issues down there LC. It must be incredibly frustrating for Cliftonville residents who care which would seem to include you. It’s madness – although Cliftonville has some high-density housing it’s not a massive area and there aren’t any tower blocks. Other councils must have the same problems x 100 or 1,000 without needing to resort to playing musical paladin bins.
I suspect you have some ideas as to how this could be handled better. There just have to be better solutions.
During the lockdowns people spent far more time at home, got fat and lazy gorging on delivered takeaways whilst watching the telly. Takeaway food containers stink and so it got bagged up and chucked out the front more often. They wouldn’t walk to a paladin bin “covid innit” and probably still had their jim jams on.
It only takes a few households in a street to do this a few times a week and a place soon looks like your local tip, once that habit had become ingrained it didn’t go away.
With cliftonville having so many households on a street it soon looks a mess.
Responsible landlords put refuse bins in the common areas by the front door for all the unwanted circulars and junk mail , ( keeps the common areas tidier and reduces the fire/ trip hazard of loose paper accumulating loosely) but it only takes an abandoned burger box, chip/kebab wrapper or pizza box conveniently dumped in the bin to stink the entire building out in 2 or 3 days. Plus attracting flies .
Lc makes many justifiable points, as you do. The paladin bins are used by FLY TIPPERS I noticed GARDEN WASTE recently in bins placed at the top of Norfolk Road. You can’t win unless we use security firms as suggested above & our CCTV?
The whole of thanet is used by flytippers, look down alley ways and any out of the way space, whilst not to be actively encouraged, surely much better that waste goes in a paladin and so is easily collected? Trade waste is another matter, but cctv needs monitoring evidence needs to be sufficient to stand up in court, so you pretty much need to witness the dumping then have someone on the scene asap to confirm what was dumped and where it came from. The resources are not available to do it properly. Ne much easier to put another £5 on everyones council tax and put more paladins out and empty them more often. But obviously that won’t win votes. As ever its the irresponsible minority that causes the problem.
Perhaps TDC should publish some figures in respect of refuse collection costs and how some areas cost so much more than others. Maybe just put £10 on band A&B properties, these being in the areas of greatest housing density and where most of the issues occur.
I am confused, why does this area need treating differently to other areas ?
So more resources are going into these two streets than anywhere else in thanet.
Most of us have to make do with fortnightly bins collection, these streets get twice a day !
Surely the problem is why do these streets create so much rubbish that needs investigating. To throw public money at the problem without sorting the problem isn’t the right way to go in the long term.
Make the landlords provide correct bin areas. Make the tenants take their bins out to the street. Is it really to much for people to put their bins out ? Other streets in thanet managed to put the bins out.
Lots of other flats etc around thanet dont have this problem, it’s odd how it’s a few streets in cliftonville.
To add to my post
The paladin bins at Leopold st in ramsgate are always overflowing. You see cars drivers and business putting in large black sacks etc. I thought business had to have a waste license or something and the public werent meant to use Leopold st for their domestic waste.
Time and time again this area is a mess. Set up cctv and film the cars and business owners and nick them ! I was told these bins were for TDC street cleaners only.
The whole of thanet has a rubbish problem , look down any alleyway or quiet corner, paladin bins work fine .CCTV is all well and good but to prosecute a resident dumping rubbish on a street according to the council they need to be caught on tape 3 times in a 12 month period . Then you have issues of buildings where for reasons above there is no refuse area so a resident has an excuse of sorts. Then there is the deprivation factor , deprivation goes hand in hand with problems and its pointless fining people who won’t pay, the enforcement process in itself being expensive. Then you have to add on the reluctance to prosecute those that have only recently arrived in the country. Mark Pearson who at one time led the Margate Task force gave a presentation many years back where it was exppained that in many poorer parts of the EU eastern european states throwing rubbish in the street was the norm.
About 15 years ago the council was spending an extra 180k on cleaning cliftonvilles streets in comparison to areas with similar number of households on other parts of the isle.
When there are concerted efforts to keep the area clean , it works but at huge cost, that really is not affordable.
It must be remembered that for too many years cliftonville was the last chance saloon in terms of housing for too many of Thanets least fortunate/desirable people , tucked away out of site they continued their chaotic lifestyles , which generally are pretty untidy. It’s only with the more recent incomers to the area that the issues are being endlessly highlighted.
I lived in cliftonville in the late 90’s, the rubbish and wayward behaviours of some of the locals was enough to drive me out. Go there now and some parts have undoubtedly improved , its a work in progress.
High density population, 20% of recourses are used in that area
But likewise the areas also have a much greater income from council tax , a house which if it were a single home may be a band D/E in cliftonville convert that into 5 band A flats and you get an income of
2407 single band E home
6565 same building as 5 band A flats
So how much council tax per acre does cliftonville generate in comparison say to the Cliftonville avenues?
Though obviously cliftonvilles problematic residents consume huge amounts of TDCs resources for many other things other than Refuse alone.
Fill cliftonville with wealthier DFL arty types , displacing the current problem makers and the problem is solved. But that’s akin to social cleansing and we’d need to build a “sink estate” for those displaced where they could continue their aberrant lifestyles without offending more sensitve folk. They’ll cost the same to look after whereever they go.
Well me and my wife Linda have had various issues in the last 3 years in that area .We have of course reported it to Kent Police and Thanet District Council .They are obviously full aware of what’s going on in the area but not taking any action . As we speak there are two known local drug dealers who operate above Riz Convenience Store and the costcutter .Down the road theres a few well known career criminals go around picking up rubbish and dumping it .
I wonder if local schools address relevant issues in Citizenship lessons? Quite difficult to do well and sensitively while making some reference to local conditions but could bear fruit longer term at least.
If they do it’s obviously a waste of time when you see the number of crisp packets and sweet wrappers the school kids drop along northdown road and surrounds.
No speeky eenglish. Mostly