Binmageddon: Birmingham-scale piles of black bin bags went uncollected by Veolia – and there has not even been a strike in Croydon. Pic: Litter Free Norbury
BINMAGEDDON: Residents are complaining of streets ‘littered with dumped rubbish, overflowing recycling and a persistent smell of decay’. And we are only one month into a new £40m bins contract.
By our Town Hall correspondent, KEN LEE
Just one month into Croydon Mayor Jason Perry’s new, £40million, eight-year contract with rubbish contractors Veolia – the same firm that was sacked two years ago for poor performance – and one of the borough’s MPs has had to step in over continuing problems with missed bin collections.
Deep concern: Croydon East MP Natasha Irons
Natasha Irons, the MP for Croydon East, said yesterday, “I’ve raised concerns with Mayor Perry regarding the growing number of complaints I’ve received from constituents about missed bin collections.
“It’s crucial that the council ensures Veolia is fulfilling its contractual obligations and meeting their agreed levels of service.”
It may be “crucial”, but since Veolia appear to have picked up just where they left off under their previous deal, no one should really be surprised at the continuing issues with their non-delivery of service.
Veolia was incapable even of providing a “smooth” transition of service from themselves, as many residents and businesses related issues with non-collection of refuse in the first half of April, as the contractor changed the regular collection day for some areas around the borough.
At one site, in Norbury, there was a Birmingham-like pile of black bin bags left to fester. But there’s been no refuse workers’ strike in Croydon. Here, it is just down to the usual levels of contractor incompetence: apparently no one in Veolia’s management team had managed to connect the dots over the change in the rubbish cart rounds. Once the contractors were alerted to the missed collections, the pile of bin bags was soon removed.
Pile removal: the festering black bin bags had not been included on a new collection route. Veolia cleared the mess, after complaints
“It just goes to show the council, and its contractor, can provide a swift response when it puts its mind to it,” said one reasonably pleased resident.
In her letter to Mayor Perry this week, under a heading “Urgent action required: widespread failures in waste collection services since April 1”, MP Irons spoke of her “deep concern” in respect of what she called “the significant number of complaints I have received … regarding the refuse, recycling and garden waste collection service since the start of the new Veolia contract”.
Irons wrote: “Residents report repeated missed collections despite multiple online and phone reports to the council. These delays have led to the build-up of waste, incidences of maggots and rats, and significant health concerns, particularly concerning uncollected food waste.”
Irons related how her constituents are living on roads “littered with dumped rubbish, overflowing recycling and a persistent smell of decay”. But then, what would you expect when a council reappoints contractors who proved to be so bad at the job that they had to be sacked?
The MP criticised the “perceived lack of communication and action” from Tory Perry’s increasingly remote, bunkered-down council.
“What is especially concerning is the number of residents who have taken all the appropriate steps, including filing online reports and calling council helplines, only to receive no adequate response or resolution,” Irons wrote.
“The issue is now not just one of local inconvenience – it is a matter of public health, safety and accountability.”
Veolia began last month claiming that collections were affected by staff shortages – an old excuse used by Veolia under their old contract, now dusted off and re-used under their new deal.
The new contract took effect on April 1 – but Inside Croydon understands that the council has not yet recruited all the staff needed to work as contract monitors on Veolia’s new deal.
Reporting for work: Mayor Perry turned up at the depot on Factory Lane for a photo op. His new bins deal is worse than the previous one
We have also received reports of entire streets reporting missed bin collections, only for Veolia to respond when challenged by council officials by claiming the collections had been done. With not enough contract monitoring staff at the council, the contractor’s claims have gone unverified.
In 2022, Croydon issued a Service Improvement Notice to Veolia expressing “significant and ongoing concerns” over the poor service. Rather than kick Veolia out there and then, it was announced that the contract would run down until it ended in March 2025.
Sutton and Merton, neighbouring boroughs and co-members of the South London Waste Partnership, went through a similarly expensive and pointless exercise. Sutton spent £500,000 conducting a procurement exercise before… re-appointing discredited Veolia.
This is the same Veolia whose services saw the Metro newspaper name Croydon as having “the filthiest streets in London”, with almost 32,000 household bin collections being missed in 2023.
With the latest increase last month, residents in Croydon will have seen their Council Tax increase by 27% since 2023 under Mayor Perry, bringing a Band D property to £2480.48, the second-highest in London.
And yet Mayor Perry can’t even guarantee that you’ll get your bins emptied or your street swept.
Read more: Two-year search to replace Veolia hands £40m deal to… Veolia
Read more: April Fools! £40m Veolia contract comes into force tomorrow
Read more: Croydon and three other boroughs to bin Veolia rubbish deal
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The service is worse than ever, in the Tollgate Estate recently we had to wait 6 days before Glass and Plastic recycling plus food was collected.
The website reporting is not fit for purpose.
Our collection was only done because I emailed Charles Baker, Head of Waste Services, and advised 100 formal Stage 1 complaints were to be submitted.
At 8.45pm on day 6 the collection happened.
May I also point out that Natasha Irons MP was formerly the Cabinet Member for Environment at Merton Council and former Chair of the South London Partnerhip. So she should know more about Veolia’s operation and faults than Mayor Perry or any current Croydon Councillor
I’d like to see the Service Level Agreement to which Veolia have committed, and to know what penalties can be applied to them for failing to meet them.
It has been requested. So far, Croydon Council has been unforthcoming.
Now there’s a shocker!
This is a classic example of “you get what you pay for.”
Even if there were no other bidders (and I accept the comment made previously by Inside Croydon that the incumbent has historically low balled its bids to make the contract unviable economically for other bidders, and a council unwilling/unable to pay more for a better service with another supplier), Veolia should not have been given a new 8 year contract given the previous history of providing the service.
Even if there were no other bidders, why couldn’t the new contract have been for, say four years, with reviews at the end of each year and a termination clause (with a long notice period) for inadequate performance?
More often than not, poorly performing contractors don’t tend to improve.