Site icon Inside Croydon

Croydon Council’s “non-drop” trees that cost us all extra

insidecroydon

Tomorrow, our neighbours in Sutton will be able to mark the end of the holiday period by placing their used and unwanted dying old Christmas trees outside their homes for collection, free of charge, by the local council.

In Lambeth, where residents continue to enjoy the benefits of a weekly rubbish collection service, the council will also take away old trees (the official website helpfully noting for the hard of thinking that they should have decorations removed first) for chipping and re-cycling when their dustcarts make the scheduled tour of the borough’s streets during the week.

In Croydon, there is no such Christmas tree collection service.

It is just another example of Croydon Council’s penny wise, pound foolish approach to local services.

There is a growing consensus that Croydon’s halving of regular bin collections has done nothing to enhance to state of the borough’s streets, prompting an increase in “casual” domestic tipping of bin bags on the pavements. Any savings made from reducing the bin collections is then used up in clearing the resulting mess.

So it is with Croydon’s Christmas trees. Instead of a fleet of contractors trucks doing the job in an organised fashion, Croydon’s “plan” is for thousands of households to get in their cars (if they have one) and drive to a re-cycling centre. Hardly the most environmentally friendly way of handling this annual by-product of Christmas.

Inevitably, there will be hundreds, maybe even thousands, of less conscientious residents who opt to dump their trees on our street corners or in our parks. Somebody else’s problem. Which ultimately, someone from the council’s street cleaning and fly tipping team will have to deal with. All at additional cost. To Council Tax-payers.

Sheer genius.

Meanwhile, in boroughs next door to Conservative-run Croydon, in Sutton (which is under LibDem control) and Lambeth (Labour), there are weekly bin collections and trees removed for proper re-cycling. It can’t be that difficult.

Coming to Croydon


Exit mobile version