BIN CHANGES & BAD TIMINGS

By Phil Binns

LIKE their local authority neighbours, Crumberland Clowncil has used the Christmas rush to usher out a shake-up of bin collections that at any other time of the year would have taxpayers rearing up on their hind legs.

Last Friday, with most residents firmly focused on festive frolics, Labour-run Cumberland Council coincidentally sprang a four-week public consultation about proposals to change waste collection services. Deadline? January 8th.

In 2025, the Council is planning to play silly buggers with collections and containers. The end result being that most people of a certain vintage will end up not knowing their arses from their elbows.

In particular, taxpayers across Allerdale, which includes Workington, Cockermouth, Wigton, Keswick and Maryport etc, will see WEEKLY refuse collections cut to FORTNIGHTLY. (There will be minuscule public demand.)

In its defence, the Council has been spluttering the usual Town Hall guff about “harmonisation” being required across Allerdale, Copeland and Carlisle, following the disastrous Local Government Disorganisation here.

But anyone with a modicum of sense knows that you never ask the public anything in December.

They’re mostly fist-fighting in supermarket queues over the last bag of Brussels sprouts; staring deep into the glass at Christmas parties; doing the rounds of friends and relatives, or preparing for Aunt Aggie’s arrival.

If the Council doesn’t know this, Baldrick, it’s thicker than Dick McThick; winner of last year’s Mr Thickie Competition...

At this time of year, the Council can’t seriously expect people to drop everything to piss about filling in tedious online feedback forms.

(To get a paper version, you have to trot along to the library or email the Council to request one – a further barrier to some elderly people not voicing their concerns).

Yet you can guarantee that the “piss poor” response rate to these proposals from the public will be interpreted by the Council as the green light to do precisely what they had planned to do all along.