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Councillor’s Report April 2024 – Councillor Rich Lehmann

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It would be remiss of me not to write something about the subject which has been the talk of Swale for the past month – bins.

The problems we’ve seen with late, or in many cases entirely missed, collections across large parts of the borough have understandably generated a significant volume of calls to our customer service team and calls and emails to councillors. They have also generated a significant number of posts and comments on Facebook.

I am very sorry for the inconvenience and distress that this service has caused across the borough during the past month. The switchover has clearly been a failure, although possibly not to the degree that many would believe. There are large parts of the borough that have received a ‘perfect’ service so far, and it is primarily the rural areas which have been missed (in many cases consistently). I’d like to share the reasons why this is, and what Suez have been, and are continuing to do, to remedy the situation.

Firstly, to respond to a question which I’ve seen raised, the reason we no longer have a contract with Biffa is simply that the contract we had with them expired. Along with our partners in Ashford and Maidstone, we put out a tender and Suez were the only company to bid for that contract.

More on this can be read online at www.tinyurl.com/SBCwaste

Some general reasons why the rounds are currently taking longer include:

New routes – the routes have been redrawn to be more efficient and resilient in the long term. We have more vehicles out in the same parts of the borough on the same day. This means that when a crew member is suddenly unable to work, (this work has a higher rate of injury than most), or there is a vehicle breakdown, we have other vehicles nearby who can pick up the rest of that round. The completion of the new routes will get faster and more efficient with practice, but it may take a few weeks.

New processes – the crews now have handheld devices which can be used to register which properties have been collected from and which haven’t. This additional piece of work may slow crews down as they get used to it, but in the long term will bring benefits in terms of more accurate data and a greater ability to send crews out to missed areas without them needing to be reported by the public.

The main reason the rural rounds have been hit disproportionately is that the new routes have not been assigned as efficiently as they should have been in terms of areas served by narrow lorries and those that have full-size lorries. There are large parts of the borough which can easily be navigated by the larger trucks and were under the previous contract. Suez have acknowledged this and are making changes to the routes to switch more properties and areas onto the full-size trucks. This will greatly improve their ability to complete collection rounds.

Suez have also employed a number of new staff, both on the driver side and the loader side, and this week, (week beginning 15th April), we are beginning to see the effect of those additional staff and a much greater proportion of collections being completed on the scheduled day. I am hopeful that this trend will continue and that we will reach a state of normal service by early to mid-May.

Rich Lehmann
rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk
https://kentgreencouncillors.news/

Promoted by T. Valentine on behalf  of R.Lehmann (Swale Green Party) c/o PO Box 78066, London, SE16 9GQ

KCC Councillor’s Report March 2024

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Rich Lehmann

I’m acutely aware that in the last couple of pieces I’ve written I’ve mainly been talking rubbish (and recycling, and food waste), so I’ll change the record this month. The new waste collection contract will commence on Monday 25th March, and because of the widespread changes to collection days across the borough, there will likely be a lot of disruption and confusion in the first month or two, but hopefully the new dates will ‘bed in’ quickly.

BUDGETS

Kent County Council and Swale Borough Council have both now set their budgets for 2024/25. The current, widely publicised, financial pressures that councils up and down the country are facing have forced both councils into making difficult decisions relating to the cutting of services, and the increasing of charges for some of the services they provide.

It was an interesting experience for me. I’ve now spent three years as an opposition councillor at KCC attacking and trying to reverse or prevent cuts made in their budget; but now as an administration councillor at Swale, I’m on the other side of the coin, having to decide (along with other administration councillors) which areas to make cuts in, and then having to defend those decisions. Neither role is easy, or pleasant, and I find the whole process pretty exhausting.

One small silver lining that came out of the KCC budget was that the Faversham Household Waste Recycling Centre, which was threatened with closure in 2023, has been given a stay of execution for the coming year. However tips are still earmarked as a potential area in which the council might look to make cuts in 2025, along with libraries, school maintenance, the Kent Travel Saver (which would cost many families around £1000 without the KCC Subsidy), and “other community services”.

Swale have also made some tough decisions whilst attempting to balance their books. Although here it’s often more a case of increased charges (such as those for car parking) which appear to be the cause of the greatest concern.

To add insult to injury for residents, the continued reductions in funding from central government mean that both councils are effectively forced to raise their council tax rates by the maximum allowed amount (4.99% for KCC and 2.99% for Swale) just to avoid having to make those cuts even deeper.

I sincerely hope that changes are made in the coming years which mean that local government is given more funding to provide the services that our communities desperately need.

Rich Lehmann
rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk


KCC Councillor’s Report February 2024

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Rich Lehmann

Following on the theme of the piece I wrote last month, at Swale Borough Council it’s all systems go in preparation for the new waste collection contract which is coming in late March.

I was hoping to have included information about which days resident’s bins would now be emptied on a parish by parish basis, but a few additional, last minute changes to the routes meant that sadly this was not possible. I can, however, say that letters are being sent out to every household from mid-February, so you should have received one by the time you read this.

The new collection dates will take effect from Monday 25th March, so please stick to your current collection dates until that point.

As I also mentioned last month, we will be doing our best to improve rates of collection not only of dry recycling, but also of food waste. This is something that has numerous benefits, including helping to keep your bins less smelly and your green bin cleaner and reducing the cost of disposing of waste for our councils. The food waste collected separately from household rubbish is turned into compost, which is great for the environment.

If you don’t already have them, you can order both orange and black ‘kerbside’ food waste bins, and small silver food waste bins for your kitchen on the Swale Borough Council website by going to the following link – http://tinyurl.com/swalefoodwaste

Rich Lehmann
rich.lehmann@kent.gov.uk
https://kentgreencouncillors.news/