CROYDON IN CRISIS: Having failed to get rubbish contractors Veolia to do their job, the council’s struggles to deal with the borough’s litter-strewn streets are, according to shameless Tory councillors, because residents have been doing what they were asked to do. By STEVEN DOWNES
Comments by Tory councillor Stewart, Perry’s council cabinet member for streets and enforcement, have sparked a war of words with resident volunteer “champions” in Norbury and Bensham Manor.
And Councillor Stewart is now subject of a formal complaint to the Town Hall’s ethics committee (yes: they have a committee, if not much in the way of ethics).
One of Mayor Perry’s promises – all broken – was to make the borough cleaner. But after Perry axed the council’s enforcement team, Croydon was getting an average of 1,000 fly-tips per week, making it the most fly-tipped authority in England according to official figures from DEFRA, the environment department.
CrapApp: woe betide you if you use the council’s reporting tool to flag up a fly-tip
Perry regularly blathers on about “zero tolerance” for fly-tippers. Part of his schtick over the last four years has been to appeal to residents to report all incidents of littering and fly-tipping on the council’s CrapApp, also known as Love Clean Streets.
But now one of piss-poor Perry’s close aides at the Town Hall has taken to berating residents for doing exactly that.
Stewart, a councillor for Purley Oaks and Riddlesdown ward in the south of the borough, has stated on the record: “A very small number of exceptionally prolific individuals in this community submit hundreds of reports often daily, including duplicates and incidents that are plainly routine street-cleaning issues rather than fly-tipping.”
Stewart’s public statement raises all kinds of issues around GDPR and the council’s data protection duties, since the sources of the reports to the CrapApp ought not be accessible, even to council cabinet members. So how can Councillor Stewart make such a statement with so much certainty?
Hmm. Has there been a serious data breach? Or is the councillor lying?
What data is publicly available, the number of fly-tips by ward area, shows Bensham Manor topping the table followed by Norbury and Pollards Hill ward.
Having failed miserably to get rubbish contractor Veolia to do the job that they are paid millions of pounds to do – keeping our neighbourhoods clean – Croydon Council has turned to Council Tax-payers to do something that they have already paid for. Street Champions, according to the council’s own publicity, “are a network of residents who have volunteered to improve the environment in our local area”.
This, the council says, includes reducing “instances of environmental crime such as littering and fly-tipping”.
Mayor Perry’s council says: “We want to take pride in Croydon and helping the planet. To do this we need more Street Champions to get involved and join us in making a difference.”
Yet those that do risk being subject to a “pile-on” far more noxious than any fly-tip, from bullying Tory councillors and activists.
Not a fly-tip: this pile of stinking rubbish re-appears on Croydon High Street, a two-minute walk from the council offices, most nights. Don’t dare let Cllr Stewart discover you’ve reported it on the council’s CrapApp
Stewart, probably with backing from Perry, has turned on two of the most dedicated volunteers in the borough. Graham Mitchell organises clean-ups in Bensham Manor and Thornton Heath, while Tony Hooker is the founder of volunteer group Litter Free Norbury.
It was Hooker’s data analysis that revealed that our council had allowed Veolia to remove more than 1,000 waste bins from the streets of Croydon, to shorten the contractors’ bin-emptying rounds and save them money, while allowing littering to increase.
Today, Hooker said, “It is no secret that Graham is Croydon’s largest reporter of environmental issues. So it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Councillor Stewart’s comments are, at least in part, directed at him.
“We also strongly suspect it includes the ‘high-reporting’ individuals in Litter Free Norbury, including myself.”
Hooker says that Councillor Stewart has been pursuing this same weaseling narrative, effectively trying to dismiss the hugely embarrassing fly-tipping data, in comments on other social media.
On one occasion, the councillor posted this: “We do not shy away from being held to account, but we should also be conscious when someone clearly has an axe to grind and they are perhaps not acting with the purest of motives.”
Ten-to-one shot: how did Simon Fox get his information? He refused to say
Hooker says: “That is a serious insinuation about someone’s motives.”
At March’s scrutiny sub-committee for streets and environment, Simon Fox, who works for Conservative MP Chris Philp and who was, at that time, a councillor for Waddon ward, said, “We know of residents who report 10 bags that comprise one fly-tip as 10 separate reports.”
It is difficult to know how Fox could be able to state that as fact without having unlawful access to data from the CrapApp. Otherwise, there is no evidence to support such a claim, but Tory Fox was allowed to get away with it. The chair of that scrutiny sub-committee meeting was his Conservative colleague, Alasdair Stewart.
Hooker says that he challenged Fox over the basis for his comment. “I did not receive a response,” he says. “I forwarded it to Stewart in July. I got no response.”
Hooker adds: “We have not seen the council provide examples of deliberately false reports, evidence that the reporting is systematically inaccurate, or evidence demonstrating how many reports are supposedly duplicates or wrongly categorised.
“Nor have we seen any evidence that any individual’s motives are anything other than wanting their community kept clean.
“The number of reports someone makes is not, by itself, evidence that those reports are invalid. Does it matter if one person makes 50 reports around their ward in a day, or if that same workload was shared between 10 people making five reports each? The environmental problems haven’t changed.
“And let’s remember something rather important: Croydon Council has actively encouraged residents to report environmental problems.
“It encourages residents to report problems via the Love Clean Streets app and has encouraged people to become Street Champions.
Rubbish councillor: cabinet member Alasdair Stewart
“Councillor Stewart himself says that making reporting easy helps the council deal with fly-tipping. So why are some of the residents who have actually taken the council at its word now being criticised for making too many reports?
“A report does not create a fly-tip. The fly-tip creates the report.
“If the council believes that a resident is misusing the Love Clean Streets system, there is a proper way to deal with that: investigate the reports, contact the individual, explain what is wrong, provide clear guidance and, if necessary, take appropriate action.
“What shouldn’t happen is for elected representatives to question publicly someone’s motives or reporting behaviour without providing evidence to support those claims.”
Mitchell has stood for election to the council twice, on both occasions independent of any political party, and both times in his home ward. Litter Free Norbury also maintains its political neutrality. “We campaign for cleaner streets and actively work towards that aim.
“If Croydon council genuinely wants residents to help keep the borough clean, it should be thanking those who spend their own time documenting problems — not making them think twice about pressing the report button.
“Holding the council to account isn’t having an ‘axe to grind’. It’s called being a good, community-minded resident.”
Read more: Perry’s ‘caught on camera’ fly-tipper is following council’s rules
Read more: New £5,000 fines for fly-tipping – but will Perry catch offenders?
Read more: Kafkaesque world of contractors clearing 98% of fly-tips
Read more: #BINMAGEDDON: Veolia performance is worse under new deal
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