CROYDON IN CRISIS: Despite being forced to go back to Veolia two years after they sacked the rubbish contractors, the council is claiming that their new contract is a better deal for residents. By STEVEN DOWNES
Piled high: contractors will now collect bin bags from flats above shops four times each fortnight
Croydon Council officials, forced to go back with their tails between their legs and re-hire Veolia, the rubbish contractors who they sacked in 2022, are now promising “cleaner streets, more regular waste collections and improved monitoring of service delivery” under the £40million, eight-year agreement.
“They must take Croydon’s residents for mugs,” according to one Katharine Street source.
Inside Croydon reported exclusively yesterday that Croydon and Sutton councils would both be going back to the contractor that they had decided not-so-long-ago wasn’t up to the task. After a two-year procurement process that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, Veolia ended up the only company bidding for the work.
Merton Council, another member of the South London Waste Partnership who in 2022 expressed “significant and ongoing concerns” with Veolia’s performance and issued the contractor with a Service Improvement Notice, has also agreed a new contract with Veolia, although the Labour-controlled authority has decided to take its street-sweeping service back in-house.
According to Croydon’s propaganda department, one of the “improvements” in the new contract from 2025 is that people living in flats above shops will now get four times as many rubbish collections as all other Council Tax-payers.
This may represent a significant break with the principle of providing all residents with the same level of service. It may even create a situation where some residents are paying more for an inferior service.
Rubbish: Mayor Jason Perry
Croydon’s residents now pay the second-highest Council Tax in London, after Tory Mayor Jason Perry imposed 21% increased in the space of just 12 months. It is suggested in the council’s most recent announcement about bin collections that they were looking at reducing the frequency of the service under the new deal with Veolia, but opted against doing so.
According to a statement from the Fisher’s Folly propaganda bunker, “The new eight-year contract, which will benefit both residents and the council”. Which is nice. Who else was it meant to benefit?
The council has confirmed that the new contract with the old contractors “will include waste and recycling collections in the borough, as well as street cleaning, winter maintenance of footpaths and the upkeep of the waste vehicle fleet”.
The council says: “Flats above shops will now receive an additional waste collection each week, resulting in two collections per week. Additionally, there will be a new minimum weekly collection of food waste from all council housing estates.” The latter is being introduced because the council has to, under changes in recycling legislation.
The council claims: “Improvements to the contract include targeted street cleaning, better coordination of emptying bins, ensuring no bin bags are left out overnight, and a new graffiti removal service.”
The council fails to state whether they will replace the 1,000 street bins, removed at Veolia’s request to make it cheaper and easier for them to do their job, with the predictable impact on the state of the borough’s streets and pavements.
Veolia, under the previous agreement, had been allowed to “mark their own homework”, and self-monitor their performance. “The new agreement will involve an improved contract management approach,” the council claims, “enabling council officers to work closely with the new service provider to understand and address the needs of the local area directly.” The council fails to expand on what this will mean in practice, given the council has so many fewer staff available to perform even basic duties than they did before 2020.
“This will allow the officers to be fully integrated as part of the local community area they are assigned to monitor,” the council claims.
Bin and gone: residents living in their own homes are likely to continue to get the same service from Veolia…
Piss-poor Perry, who is never short of a word or three to claim credit for the latest nonsense he allows council officials to get away with, says that he feels “positive that what we are proposing for the future is a better deal for Croydon”.
Mentioning his commitment to making the borough’s streets and open spaces cleaner – which he has blatantly failed to deliver on so far – Perry said: “I believe this contract is a big milestone to achieving that commitment.
“I am also committed to making sure that this contract is well managed and if residents experience problems, we will be able to swiftly resolve them, which will be a massive improvement on the current arrangements.”
Which given they have just handed a new contract to the same company they fired two years ago because of their poor performance, might stretch some people’s credulity beyond breaking point.
Read more: BINMAGEDDON: Mayor’s secret plan to charge £5 per new bin
Read more: ‘Red alert’ over increased costs with outsourced rubbish deal
Read more: Croydon and three other boroughs to bin Veolia rubbish deal
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
