martin mullaney

Street names – Mid Devon fails Birmingham’s comma sense test

An apostrophe catastrophe echoes Brum's storm in a teacup

By:
Published March 28, 2013, in Politics


Mid Devon District Council has just had to reprint and re-issue tens of thousands of council tax demands, after sending the majority of its taxpayers bills for up to £5 more than they were due to pay. A hapless council officer had miscalculated the parish precept part of the bills, thereby costing the council an estimated £12,000 in re-billing charges.

A pretty big deal, you might think – one that would surely top the agenda at this week’s cabinet meeting. But you’d be wrong. Sure, folks are annoyed and the Council’s taken some flak, but the annoyance and flak over this expensive and embarrassing boo-boo are NOTHING compared with the literally global outcry prompted by the Council’s announcement that it was planning to formalise its street naming guidelines by, among other things, avoiding in new street names and signs “all punctuation, including apostrophes”.

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Chamber POTY: Sir Albert Bore, nominated by Martin Mullaney

Labour's veteran leader has made as many enemies as friends, says the former councillor

By:
Published December 17, 2012, in The Chamber POTY


I would vote for  Sir Albert Bore, solely on the basis that he has led the Labour Party in Birmingham back to power, albeit on the back of an unpopular Conservative-Liberal Democrat government. Whether he is still leader of the Labour group after next May will be interesting.

Continues…

Birmingham Labour gets its facts wrong about food waste recycling schemes

By:
Published December 11, 2012, in Recommended


Food waste (Photo credit: Nick Saltmarsh)

Curated from , written by martin mullaney

The debate over the imposition of 3 wheelie bins for every household in Birmingham, plus the privatisation of the refuse collection service came to Cabinet this afternoon. Councillor Deirdre Alden (Conservative, Edgbaston Ward) has written up an excellent report on the Chamberlain News at https://thechamberlainfiles.com/politicians-with-their-heads-in-the-sand/5678 
 One point I want to pick up on though for this blog report is the claim by the Labour Leadership at the Cabinet meeting that no authority was granted money from the government for the food waste recycling schemes. 

Readers of my blog will know that the money for the imposition of 3 wheelie bins per household came from a successful bid for government monies. The previous Conservative/Lib Dem administration wanted to bid for a city-wide roll out of food waste collections. Food waste collections are run successfully up and down Britain and have sent Council recycling rates through the roof. The new Labour administration dropped the food waste recycling scheme and instead bid for wheelie bins.

The claim by the Labour Leadership that not one single food waste scheme was successful in getting government money is utter tosh. 24 schemes were funded. ………….and here’s the list. This is a direct cut-and-paste from the government list of successful authorities, which can be downloaded at  
 The 24 successful food waste recycling schemes are as follows: 

 

Bidder name Amount Description Households receving improved service
Barnet £4,492,311 Introducing a weekly food waste collection, to separate kitchen waste from garden waste, whilst supporting weekly residual waste collections. A reward scheme to encourage ‘dry’ recycling is also to be introduced across the borough.  140,000
Bournemouth £7,104,837 Enhancing the existing fortnightly co-mingled recycling collection; driving down the amount of waste produced per head of population; introducing an incentivised ‘opt-in’ weekly collection of food waste, and supporting weekly residual waste collections. 86,170
Brent £217,820 Supporting weekly residual collections for 8,600 flats whilst extending the weekly food waste collection.  8,600
Colchester £2,353,122 Introducing weekly food waste collections for all properties in the borough and supporting weekly residual waste collections. 77,500
Cumbria £606,230 Supporting weekly residual waste collections in three of the county’s districts (Allerdale, Barrow and Eden) whilst encouraging the removal of food from the waste stream in these areas. 102,534
Gravesham £4,915,990 Introducing a weekly food collection and supporting weekly collections of residual waste and recycling. 41,400
Hackney £1,337,000 Expanding weekly food waste collections to estate based households whilst increasing food waste yields from those properties already in receipt of the service and supporting a weekly residual waste collection service across the borough. 102,000
Haringey £682,600 Supporting weekly residual collections to Haringey’s 25,000 flatted properties and introducing a weekly food waste collection for them. 25,000
Harlow £1,038,775 Supporting weekly residual waste collections for the district’s 7,500 flats and introducing the collection of weekly food waste for them. 7,500
Hillingdon £1,151,200 Supporting a weekly residual waste collection and enhancing the existing fortnightly garden waste service to make it a weekly organic waste collection service, receiving both kitchen and garden waste. 86,000
Islington £406,594 Extending weekly food waste collections to an additional 10,000 estate properties and supporting weekly collections of recycling and residual waste. 10,000
Lewes £2,087,538 Adding a weekly food waste collection and a recycling rewards scheme for all its households whilst supporting weekly residual waste collections. 43,561
North Hertfordshire £853,490 Supporting weekly residual collections for 6,000 flats and adding food and cardboard recycling. 6,000
Northamptonshire Waste Partnership £1,513,504 Supporting weekly residual collections in some areas whilst introducing weekly food waste collections. Also moving to comingled recycling collection in some areas. 62,770
Oadby and Wigston £1,598,230 Converting the present weekly residual waste collection service to a weekly ‘dual pass’ residual and food waste collection service, enhancing wider recycling collection services and introducing a recycling rewards scheme. 22,538
Ribble Valley £750,000 Introducing new fortnightly mixed food and garden waste collections and supporting weekly residual waste collections.  24,929
Rochford £600,000 Supporting weekly residual waste and kitchen waste collections.  3,100
Southend-on-Sea £1,635,000 Supporting a weekly residual waste collection, and enhancing the current weekly food waste collection by delivering a targeted relaunch of the service and introducing a recycling rewards scheme. 68,000
Spelthorne £493,000 Supporting a weekly residual waste collection for 2,000 hard to access properties and providing a weekly co-mingled recycling and food waste collection service for them. 2,000
Sutton £2,826,011 Introducing a weekly food waste collection service to the whole borough and supporting weekly residual waste collections. 80,370
Tendring £624,500 Introducing a promotional campaign aimed at increasing participation in recycling as well as the purchase of additional recycling bins for flats whilst supporting weekly residual waste and food waste collections. 68,801
Thanet £999,425 Supporting weekly residual waste collections and introducing a weekly food waste collection service for 13,500 residents. 13,500
Trafford £6,386,244 Supporting a weekly residual waste collection and increasing the frequency of food/garden waste collections from fortnightly to weekly for all properties in the borough (whilst introducing the service into flats/terraced properties). 96,750
Wolverhampton £2,683,370 Encouraging recycling through the introduction of a recycling rewards scheme whilst supporting weekly residual and food waste collections. 105,000
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Get set for another rubbish city council debate

Birmingham Liberal Democrats insist: only give wheelie bins to 'people who can manage them'

By:
Published November 27, 2012, in Politics


It is well known that Birmingham has an issue with rubbish.

The city council has struggled for years over the future of the black sack refuse collection service.

To modernise, or not? Continue with unsightly piles of plastic bags, or follow many other local authorities by introducing wheelie bins?

Birmingham’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition spent much of the period 2004-2012 fretting about the possibility of industrial action by binmen, which it was feared would result in vote-losing pictures in the media of bags of rotting rubbish spewed across pavements and streets.

During that period the coalition fought off attempts by Labour councillors, and also by some Liberal Democrats, to switch to wheelie bins in an effort to boost recycling rates.

In 2006, Ian Coghill, Director of Environmental Services, told a that Birmingham’s black plastic sack refuse collection system

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Labour’s early fireworks party

The inside track on Birmingham City Council - Paul Dale's Diary

By:
Published September 24, 2012, in Politics


It’s not November yet, but we can expect plenty of fireworks when Birmingham City Council’s controlling Labour group finally gets around to meeting after a three month summer break.

The comrades, all 77 of them, last gathered to discuss policy at the beginning of July and there has been no opportunity since then for backbenchers collectively to have their say on the way things are going.

I hear that Sir Albert Bore, the council leader, has called an extraordinary group meeting for the first Monday in October in response to demands for a debate on controversial Government welfare reforms.

And in typical Albert fashion, he’s arranged the meeting

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