CROYDON IN CRISIS: Rubbish contractor was sacked in 2022 and in 2023 missed 32,000 bin collections across the borough. But now Mayor Perry has confirmed they are to get a new eight-year contract
Dirty deed: how the council website confirmed the deal, with ‘partner’ Veolia, last night
With all the comic timing of a Bernard Manning tribute act, Croydon’s Tory Mayor, Jason Perry, chose late on a Friday to sneak out confirmation of what Inside Croydon had reported more than a month earlier: that his council has awarded a £40million contract to Veolia, the rubbish company that was binned for its poor service just two years ago.
“Our streets will be tidier and residents will notice a better service,” piss-poor Perry said, convincing no one, perhaps not even himself.
The punchline to this very poor-taste joke is that Perry was making his big announcement just as Croydon was being confirmed as having “the filthiest streets in London”, with the worst rates for bin collections across the capital.
“The filthiest streets in London have been revealed – and the figures don’t make for pleasant reading,” Metro reports, ominously.
Rubbish performance: this is what a fly-tip in Shirley looks like after Veolia had been to clear it up this week
The newspaper sent Freedom of Information requests to all of London’s boroughs to find out how many reports they received about bins not being collected in 2023.
Veolia has had the contract to empty Croydon households’ bins, sweep the borough’s streets and clear away fly-tips since 2003.
Included in the deal was provision for Veolia to monitor the work of… Veolia.
But loyal members of Mayor Perry’s team have been keen to claim that under recently revised council monitoring systems, the rubbish contractor’s performance has been improving.
Not according to Metro it ain’t: “The filthiest borough in London was Croydon, which received 31,895 reports of bin collections being missed.
“That’s the equivalent of 88 bins being missed every single day, or more than 2,600 missed each month.”
What the news report failed to state is that Croydon Council has one preferred method of residents reporting street cleaning issues – Love Clean Streets, its crap app. That app has no category for residents to report a missed bin collection (after more than 10 years, iC works on the theory that the omission is quite deliberate). So Metro’s 32,000 missed collections figure can only be a fraction of the true number.
The council’s complicit complacency over Veolia’s rubbish performance was demonstrated by the delusional claim given to Metro that “crews completed 99.87% of all collections last year with no issues”. You decide whether you believe that.
Perry’s council is now to reward rubbish contractor Veolia’s failures with an eight-year deal worth around £40million of tax-payers’ money.
This is the same Veolia that in 2022 was deemed to be causing “significant and ongoing concerns” over its poor performance and was issued with a Service Improvement Notice by Croydon and other council clients, Sutton and Merton.
The councils are all members of the South London Waste Partnership, and two years ago all declared that they would not be renewing Veolia’s contract when it ends in 2025.
Except now Perry is handing Veolia a whole new deal.
Veolia ended up being the only firm to bid for the work from cash-strapped Croydon. In the past, the company has pulled a sly one by under-bidding all rivals to seal the deal, and then once installed, keep coming back to have their fees increased or their tasks reduced.
It is because of Veolia that there are around 1,000 fewer street bins around the pavements of Croydon today than there were in 2019: fewer bins means fewer collections means fewer staff for Veolia to pay to do the work. And fewer bins also means filthier streets, too.
Rubbish Mayor: Jason Perry has hiked Council Tax by 21% and has looked at charging extra for replacement bins
Now Perry has lumbered the people of Croydon with Veolia until 2033, at least.
“Croydon Council’s new waste contract, which will provide improved street cleaning, a new night-time waste and cleansing service and an enhanced waste collection service for flats above shops has now been confirmed,” the council’s propaganda department trumpeted last night.
The council has also indulged in a bit of victim-blaming: “Resident feedback formed a key element of the new contract, which included the desire to keep the current alternate weekly waste and recycling collections.” So there you have it: it’s your fault.
According to the council, the new contract will:
- Improve waste collections for flats above shops (some residents will now get two bin bag collections every week; lucky them)
- Retain the alternate weekly collections for waste and recycling to households
- Start a new waste clean-up of the night time economy, so waste is not on the streets in the morning
- Reduce the use of pesticides to remove weeds on the streets, a more environmentally friendly approach will be used (this practice was supposed to have been banned years ago)
- A more dynamic response to cleaning streets, as some streets attract more waste than others, and an improved street cleaning schedule across the borough
“The award of the contract follows a comprehensive procurement exercise,” the council said, stretching credulity once again.
It is important at this point that we should put on public record the words of Mayor Perry as he sought to take credit for this Hobson’s Choice deal.
You’ve bin done: meet the new rubbish contractors, same as the old rubbish contractors
“This contract is a significant milestone in implementing my business plan and is a key priority in delivering a cleaner Croydon and restoring pride to our borough.
“Our streets will be tidier, and residents will notice a better service,” Perry said, clearly oblivious to the evidence of Veolia’s previous performance, and ignoring the piles of rubbish which blight so many street corners around the borough.
Perry also said: “More will be done to make sure that the contract will be monitored and if the service is not performing, the contractor will be held to account.
“I firmly believe that the ‘look and feel’ of the borough is vital to driving investment and restoring pride for those who live and work in Croydon.
“This new contract is about keeping what works and changing what doesn’t. It offers value for money and an improved service for residents.”
Jason Perry will be seeking re-election as Croydon’s £82,000 per year Mayor in May 2026, when residents will be able to exercise their opinion on whether rubbish contractors Veolia and the executive mayor really are providing “value for money and an improved service”.
Read more: Two-year search to replace Veolia hands £40m deal to… Veolia
Read more: BINMAGEDDON: Mayor’s secret plan to charge £5 per new bin
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
The mess they leave outside the bin sheds at our flats is disgusting. We also have to drive through that part and they leave broken glass etc all over the floor. I watched them kicking rubbish that had missed this bin cart this morning back on to the entryway of our car park. They also never put the bins back where they get them from. So much for cleaner streets.
How does this man Perry stay in office?
There’s these things, Keith. Called elections. Come round every so often…
More rewarding for failure. I would say I wish Perry and his mates could all get in the bin and get taken away but given the fact that they haven’t bothered to empty my paper recycling bin for over a month now they would be sticking around for a while!
Croydon Council are supposed to have a team to monitor Veolia’s performance and enforce penalties if they fail to deliver. What the FCUK are they doing?? PS: Very happy with my bin men here in leafy Kenley.
“A team?” Are you sure? Veolia’s performance in this borough has never been objectively monitored
?? Perhaps Veolia monitored their own performance and objectively reported what was neccessary to achieve contractual obligations?
Irrespective – what is clear is that when the Council orifice dribbles a bibfull of rubbish – it bears no relation to the stark reality so clearly evidenced on Croydons streets.
My calculations show that across the capital, the South London Waste Partnership has the worst record of all when it comes to missed collections, at an average of 20% of all households being hit at least once. That’s over six times worse than what the East London Waste Authority manage to achieve.
While the worst contractor for missed collections is Countrystyle, they are only delivering a crap job to the poor citizens of Bexley. It is Veolia who are mucking up more people than most. Getting it right while serving the same number of boroughs as Veolia but even more households are the DSOs. Direct Service Organisations serve the interests of their local councils and people, not some global giant like Veolia with an annual revenue of over €45bn.
You’d hope that piss-poor Perry or his overpaid useless unemployable sidekick (Councillor Scott Roche, Cabinet Member for Streets and Environment and Chair of the SLWP) might have looked into alternatives before signing us up to the same rubbish deal. But no, they roped in Councillor Bob Ward to do that, giving him the Mickey Mouse post of Deputy Cabinet Member for Contract Management, because Roche can’t be trusted to take decisions
Don’t forget the full-time council staff on six-figure salaries who work hand in glove with contractors and only ever pay lip service to the people’s elected representatives – the likes of Steve Iles (now working in Swindon) and Nick Hibberd, who oversaw the re-employment of Veolia, who is soon to be CEO of Bristol City Council.
if we could recycle Croydon Council all together that would be cheaper then 40 million
Well, the propaganda department’s notice says, “The new agreement will involve an improved contract management approach with regular reviews to ensure value for money for residents. Council officers will work closely with Veolia to understand and address the needs of local areas directly and a client management team will monitor costs and performance of the service. This will allow council officers to be fully integrated as part of the local communities they are assigned to monitor. This contract monitoring will ensure there is accountability for residents and the council should issues arise.”
If this is “new”, then it somewhat confirms that such arrangements have not been in place previously.
“Regular reviews”? How often? Daily? Twice daily? Or once in a blue moon?
Council officials ought not need to “work closely with Veolia to understand and address the needs of local areas”. Council staff should already be across local requirements.
It was when council officials accepted, unquestioningly, Veolia’s “desk exercise”, implementing a system of bins everywhere and impossible (but cheaper) collection rounds, that dumped Binmageddon on the streets of Croydon.
“This contract monitoring will ensure there is accountability for residents and the council should issues arise.”
We will see, won’t we?
FOI anyone?
On what?
What’s ACTUALLY in the contract. All the questions you listed!
You don’t know how FoIs to our council (and most others, AFAIK) work. Or don’t work.
They will hide behind a “commercial confidentiality” protection to withhold all the nitty gritty details.
We’ve reported stuff over this contract – including revealing the identity of Veolia as “winning” the contract – that were contained in the secret “Part B” of a council report.
Greater transparency and openness from Croydon Council only ever comes from whistleblowers and leaks.
I think I said about 8 months ago that there are few Companies able to take over from Veolia, few willing to take over from that shambles and fewer willing to work with this Council. I was being somewhat optimistically positive in those statements.
Clearly there were none! My bad.