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Binmageddon! Confusion and delay on Christmas collections

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Some households in the borough face a gap of at least 11 days for their domestic refuse collections over the Christmas period – having been given no notice of the rearranged schedule.

Blighted by bins: Some householders have resorted to putting their bins out twice a week, in hope of a collection

And it will take rubbish contractors Veolia until mid-January to return to the regular cycle of collections.

Although even that return to “normal” may yet prove fraught with confusion over collection dates, as the council looks to change regular bin days around the borough for a third time in less than four years.

The latest episode of Binmageddon to be inflicted on the borough will begin this weekend. Those neighbourhoods which last had a visit from the bin men on Friday December 18 will now have to wait until Tuesday December 29 before they get their recycling and food waste collected.

Such a delay ought to be manageable for most households given adequate notice – but the human dynamos in the council’s press office neglected to issue any notification of the schedule until last Friday afternoon, long after the last visit of a Veolia truck for some for a fortnight.

With Christmas Day and New Year’s Day bank holidays falling on Fridays, and December 28 serving as a Boxing Day bank holiday, the council and Veolia faced an awkward scheduling issue. The council lists three Saturdays when schedule-fixing collections are being made over the period, but these do not include Deceber 26, which would have required budget-busting overtime payments at a time of a spending freeze in the bankrupt borough.

In the propaganda department’s press release – issued after 4pm last Friday, far too late to catch the pre-Christmas deadlines of the local dead-tree media – the council said, “A printed leaflet of collection dates until November 2021 has also been delivered to households across the borough.”

Which is true. But according to the council’s own leaflet (slogan: “Delivering for Croydon”), that rescheduling of collections was all due to begin at the start of December. In some parts of the borough, the leaflets did not land on Council Tax-payers’ doormats until… December.

The ‘Delivering for Croydon’ leaflet clearly shows the changed collection days were due to begin in December

Householders contacted by Inside Croydon say that they remain uncertain when the switch of collection days will now be implemented.

Some have resorted to putting their bins out for collection twice a week, more in hope than expectation.

“To be honest, given the number of times our bin collections have been missed in the past, it’s hard to notice any difference in service whether they come or not,” one long-suffering Council Tax-payer said.

The revised bin collection schedule from the council is:

Usual collection date  → Revised collection date

Friday 25 December → Tuesday 29 December
Monday 28 December → Wednesday 30 December
Tuesday 29 December → Thursday 31 December
Wednesday 30 December → Saturday 2 January
Thursday 31 December → Monday 4 January
Friday 1 January → Tuesday 5 January
Monday 4 January → Wednesday 6 January
Tuesday 5 January → Thursday 7 January
Wednesday 6 January → Friday 8 January
Thursday 7 January → Saturday 9 January
Friday 8 January → Monday 11 January
Monday 11 January → Tuesday 12 January
Tuesday 12 January → Wednesday 13 January
Wednesday 13 January → Thursday 14 January
Thursday 14 January → Friday 15 January
Friday 15 January → Saturday 16 January


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