Following on from the last rather gloomy post on residents’ efforts to get Bristol’s Easton and Lawrence Hill wards (roughly covered by the BS5 postcode. Ed.) tidier, some more positive news has been received from Up Our Street.

Celia, the community engagement officer, has emailed to report on a meeting she organised with some traders on Stapleton Road and commercial waste contractors earlier this week.

She writes:

It was a lively meeting, but some progress I think was made, and SUEZ, Bristol Waste and Biffa are going to visit their clients on the road to encourage people to move away from large bins on the highway to sack collection. Most traders seemed to agree that removal of the bins would help by taking away the focal points which attract so much dumping. Bristol City Council are going to have two additional enforcement officers working in the area soon, with a focus on collecting evidence so hopefully this will increase the speed and number of enforcement actions against illegal waste dumping.

Getting traders to stop using the 1280-litre Eurobins (also known by some as skip bins. Ed.) would be great news, besides which additional enforcement from the city council will also be welcome. It might just help to break the back of the fly-tipping problem. However, one has to ask what’s being done about education and encouragement, the 2 other words beginning with an “e mentioned in my previous post.

There’s nothing on education measures in Celia’s email but there is some encouraging news on other matters.

Celia continues:

Another area of progress was that we got our first two businesses to sign the Tidy BS5 Pledge! Tovey’s Seafood and First Choice Florists. I think it would be timely to visit all businesses on Stapleton Road inviting them to sign the pledge.

Finally, Up Our Street, local residents and Easton councillor Afzal Shah, amongst others, are also working on a motion to be presented to Bristol City Council for a cumulative impact area*. This would amongst other things stop planning permissions for new hot food takeaways of which both wards already have plenty and which are a major source of litter (not to mention food for the local gull and rat population. Ed.). Celia concludes by noting this proposals was also supported at the meeting with local traders.

* – Bristol currently has 5 cumulative impact areas covering the city centre, Gloucester Road, Whiteladies Road and Southville and Bedminster areas.

The original title of this post was going to be “How seriously are Bristol Clean Streets and a tidy BS5 being taken?” However, the title of Sergio Leone’s 1966 Spaghetti Western seemed more appropriate.

The good

Two weeks ago on Saturday on 6th May, there was a great community effort in East Bristol to clean up local streets and public open spaces as part of the Tidy BS5 “Beating the Bounds” event (posts passim).

This event attracted some high-level support from, amongst others, Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees, Kurt James who’s leading the council’s Bristol Clean Streets initiative, Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy, and local councillors, with whom your ‘umble scribe was able to discuss matters.

It should be noted for the record that both Marvin and Kurt completed the whole 5 km route, clearing loads of crud on their way.

The bad & the ugly

Serious doubts are now being expressed, not just by local campaigners but councillors too, about the official commitment to tidier streets in Easton and Lawrence Hill wards, as something is clearly going amiss between the fine words coming out of the Counts Louse (aka City Hall. Ed.) and what is actually happening on the streets.

These doubts are being reinforced by recent press coverage that the council and its agents cannot even keep city centre amenities clean and tidy, in addition to which another report suggests that citizen action to remove litter is being discouraged.

Fly-tipping seems to be on the increase again; and that which is reported is not always collected in a timely manner (within 2 working days of being reported, according to the council’s website. Ed.) or the first time it is reported. On the latter point I speak from personal experience, having had to report one site three times before it was finally removed.

However, third time lucky is not the worst of it. Look at the picture below. You may notice the round pink sticker on the bin. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a sticker that was affixed by Bristol Waste to fly-tipped waste for collection as part the communal bins trial near the end of last year (posts passim). That means that particular instance of fly-tipping has been awaiting collection for over 6 months!

When we started campaigning some years ago, Tidy BS5 supporters were informed that bin lorry crews and street sweepers are supposed to report fly-tipping for collection. Clearly those paying their regular visits to St Mark’s Grove are suffering from either actual or selective blindness and illiteracy.

Although the communal bins for household waste have now all disappeared from the Stapleton Road corridor, the trade bins still remain and – just like the ones that were removed – are still acting as magnets for fly-tipping.

I’ve asked the council whether there’s any legal means of removing the trade bins from the street as they’re not only attracting fly-tipping, but fly-posting and graffiti too – two more targets for the Bristol Clean Streets initiative. Not only that, but they look ugly and take up a lot of public space. Should the public purse be subsidising local business by providing public storage facilities for private property?

Litter and street cleaning also fall under the Bristol Clean Streets initiative. Just how well are they going?

The answer would appear to be that they’re not really going anywhere. All streets are supposed to be cleaned regularly, but this photograph of conditions on the ground in Croydon Street in March 2017 tells a different story. The leaves came off the trees during autumn storms in November 2016. This clearly illustrates how infrequently and/or badly that street is cleaned.

When contacted, the council acknowledged the the level of cleanliness was below standard, but that parked vehicles make it difficult to get street cleansing vehicles in to deal with it. However, one doesn’t have to be a genius to consider viable and acceptable alternatives… like sending in a bloke with a brush instead!

It’s not just above ground that litter accumulates. One of my regular routes is the pedestrian subway under from Easton Road under the Easton Way dual carriageway. This 1960s planning mistake is not the most pleasant pedestrian facility to use. However its use is made even less attractive by it seemingly being permanently full of litter (we won’t mention the persistent and all-pervasive smell of urine. Ed.). This state of affairs only seems to be alleviated somewhat a few days after I or other public-spirited residents report it as requiring attention.

Finally, let’s turn to fly-posting, another target for Bristol Clean Streets. This too, like dirty streets and fly-tipping, is supposed to be removed within 2 working days of being reported according to the council website. But what’s actually happening on the ground?

Your ‘umble scribe reported the above instance at Easter. However, one month later in mid-May it was still there. I understand it has now been removed by a local resident taking matters into their own hands. In addition, I’m aware that other local residents bothered by fly-posting do likewise and remove it themselves without involving the council’s enforcement team who on the available evidence are too busy to deal with BS5 or incapable of doing so.

Conclusion

It would appear that Bristol City Council and Bristol Waste have taken their eye off the ball locally following the initial flurry of enforcement activity and education that accompanied the communal bins trial and matters are once again slowly declining.

Whilst regular litter picks and other action by local residents should be continue to be encouraged, there also needs to be consistent action and pressure on the less tidy and civic-minded of our local residents by both Bristol City Council and Bristol Waste.

In addition, to encouragement, this action and pressure can be summarised in a further two words starting with “e“, i.e. education and enforcement; education to treat our local streets better and enforcement when the encouragement and education are insufficient.

Without additional effort the Bristol Clean Streets initiative and aspirations for a Tidy BS5 will just end up on the bonfire of council failures funded by local residents out of their increasingly unaffordable and poor value for money council tax.

Do you agree or disagree with the above analysis? Comment below.

Some time ago in a meeting with Bristol Waste, the council-owned company responsible for cleaning the city’s streets and emptying residents’ bins, it was revealed that the company wanted to try and find commercial customers for its services.

Evidence has emerged that the company has now started seeking business customers for its collection services.

Bristol Waste employees have started handing out flyers like the one below to local shops, businesses, voluntary and community sector organisations in the Easton area of the city, all of which are responsible for making their own waste disposal arrangements (and which can be fined by the city council if these are found not be exist or be suitable. Ed.).

My informant from whom I acquired the flyer told me that Bristol Waste is trialling this scheme in Easton. This presumably follows the same line of thinking as that for the Stapleton Road waste trial (posts passim), which is generally along the lines of “if it works in Easton, we can get it to work anywhere in the city“. 🙂

Update: Bristol Waste was contacted for a comment and replied as follows:

We are speaking to businesses in a number of locations across the city including Stapleton Road, Bedminster & Avonmouth in this first phase of our commercial roll-out. The service will be available city-wide.

In addition, the Bristol Waste website has a dedicated commercial page.

Bristol Waste Company, the wholly-owned council company that’s responsible for cleaning the streets, emptying the bins and collecting residents’ recycling (amongst other things. Ed.) is holding a drop-in session next week in Easton as part of the consultation on the pilot project removing communal bins along the Stapleton Road corridor.

The event will be held at Muller Hall, 39 Seymour Road, Bristol, BS5 0UW (map) on Thursday 29th September from 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.

Bristol Waste would like as many local residents and other interested parties as possible to come and give their views and prospective attendees are asked to confirm they will be coming so sufficient tea, coffee and biscuits can be arranged.

To confirm your attendance or for further details of the event please contact Jessica Tulit, Bristol Waste’s Community Engagement Officer, by emailing Jessica.Tulit [at] bristolwastecompany.co.uk or telephoning 0117 304 9022.

Unfortunately, your correspondent’s attendance is doubtful due to a family bereavement, but he will be there in spirit.

It’s good to see that Bristol Waste is prepared to tackled the problems that communal bins are causing locally after two and a half years of inaction from Bristol City Council, which introduced the 1,280-litre bins some years ago as a response to fly-tipping.

Despite a communal bin consultation (posts passim) last year revealed that the majority of residents believed fly-tipping had not been improved by the introduction of these monster bins: and my own fly-tipping records support this perception; communal bins are implicated in 60-67% of all the fly-tipping I report to the council.

However, despite this evidence, Bristol City Council has not had the courage to remove them, but merely tinkered with the details of their deployment.

In meetings with Bristol Waste, it has been made quite clear to both councillors and local residents that the company is just as fed up as we are with the problems caused by the local communal bins, which don’t just act as a magnet for fly-tipping. Analysis of the contents of the bins has revealed that only one-third is the stuff for which they were intended: the rest is made up of equal parts of recyclable materials and trade waste.

Those recyclable materials can still be recycled, but will attract a lower price due to the contamination to which they are subject in the communal bins.

Traders are supposed to have their own waste disposal contracts appropriate to their businesses. However, lots tend to cut corners – and their costs – by abusing the black communal bins earmarked specifically for use by residents (posts passim).