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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