Curated from , written by Deirdre Alden

When a Cabinet paper for a Monday meeting arrives so late it’s teatime on Friday before it makes an appearance – you know there’s likely to be something of interest in it.

So when the “Weekly Collection Support Scheme” (i.e. wheelie bins) paper arrived at about 5.30pm (Agenda Item 10 Urgent Business item Q -  Q?? that’s a lot of urgent business!) I read it with interest. And it appears the Labour Group are planning to privatise the rubbish collection service.  The paper states, “A procurement process will be initiated to obtain private sector bids for the delivery of waste collection, trade waste and street cleansing services.”

The idea seems to be that two wards will be chosen to pilot the wheelie bin scheme. This will be operated by the Council. But private contractors will be invited to tender to deal with the roll out to the remaining 38 wards – which will happen in 2014.

I wonder what the comrades think about the proposed privatisation. I wonder what the Unions think about it, and I wonder what the workers think about it.

Meanwhile concerns about the proposed introduction of wheelie bins continue to flood in to my mail box.  But it was clear at Tuesday’s Council meeting that Labour remain hell bent on introducing them.  People are NOT pleased!  I see today’s local freebie paper has lots of letters complaining about it too.

The proposed introduction date of 2014 is also very interesting. Previously the newspapers had been touting April 2013 as the date, but I thought that was impossibly soon. Instead it seems the roll out will be in 2014 – which could turn out to be bad luck for Labour Councillors seeking re-election that year. But frankly, politicians who insist on introducing something which the general public clearly don’t want, deserve to lose their seats.