Cornwall MP joins criticism over bins being axed across the county
Cornwall Council have decided to remove litter and dog poo bins from housing areas
One of Cornwall’s MPs has added her voice to growing dissent at a decision by Cornwall Council to remove litter and dog poo bins from areas of housing.
The “precarious” financial position of Cornwall Council’s housing wing – Cornwall Housing Ltd – has led to the removal of a large number of bins at or near council housing estates across the Duchy. The decision was slammed as “extremely shortsighted” at a council meeting last month.
Jayne Kirkham, MP for Truro and Falmouth, has now entered the debate following a litter pick she was part of this weekend.
She said: “Removing bins from Cornwall Housing areas is deeply disappointing. On Saturday, I joined other volunteers for a litter pick around the Beacon in Falmouth. We collected over 100kg of rubbish – four times the weight of the last litter pick in this area before the public bins were removed.
“I understand the cost pressures on Cornwall Council. However, under this Labour Government, the council received its highest funding increase since austerity last year and will benefit from this Government’s fair funding review and the stability of a three-year settlement this April.
“Public green spaces, like the Beacon, need proper waste facilities and residents already pay Cornwall Council for services like bin emptying. It is not fair to try to transfer that responsibility to town councils with no funding to cover it.
“I have written to Cornwall Council to ask them to reconsider this decision and to continue servicing at least the key bins in public spaces such as parks, green spaces, playgrounds and busy thoroughfares.”
Speaking at a meeting of the council’s sustainable growth scrutiny committee in November, Cllr Laurie Magown (Labour, Falmouth Arwenack) said: “At the end of October, Cornwall Housing started to remove a large number of outdoor bins in areas where there’s a large number of Cornwall Housing properties … so areas that traditionally have got larger areas of deprivation.”
Cornwall Housing Ltd manages and maintains approximately 10,200 council homes on behalf of the local authority. Cllr Magowan said 22 bins in Falmouth alone have been removed, with many more across Cornwall. “This is already having a large impact on the amount of litter and dog waste being left either in public or where the bins once were.”
The issue was originally raised at a full council meeting on September 16 as part of Conservative councillor James Mustoe’s Keep Cornwall Clean motion. Cllr Magowan wanted to know at the November meeting what steps, if any, Cornwall Council had taken to prevent or mitigate the action to remove the bins.
He added: “How will Cornwall Council respond to residents who understandably have concerns when council tax is very likely to rise next year and potentially rent is going up as well – essentially paying more for less?”
Cllr Peter La Broy, the Lib Dem / Independent administration’s portfolio holder for housing, told Cllr Magowan: “I have a feeling my answer might not give you too much comfort. The simple fact is that Cornwall Housing Ltd are in a precarious position where they needs to invest every penny they possibly can in upgrading the council stock.
“We have issues in terms of coming up to speed with some of our regulatory obligations. We’re just coming to the end of a programme of updating our stock condition surveys. We are meeting our obligations on gas and electrical safety checks. We do know that we have significant issues with meeting decency standards.
“So every penny ring-fenced for Cornwall Housing has to go into looking after our own owned homes. As with many activities in the council, those which are not actual obligations are areas where perhaps small amounts of money can be saved and be put back into these issues.”
He said that Cornwall Housing consulted with every local community where “one of those dog bins slated for removal was removed. The town or parish councils had the opportunity to take those on – some did, some chose not to”.
Cllr La Broy added that he thought the best thing Cornwall Council could do was to educate people to take responsibility for their own waste and if their dog messes, they bag it up and take it home and dispose of it appropriately.
Cllr Magowan responded: “Unfortunately I think it’s an extremely shortsighted approach that has been taken by Cornwall Housing. ‘Consult’ is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting in your response in terms of town and parish councils being asked if they wanted to take them on, but with no net benefit and no income to support that. I think ‘consult’ is stretching that.”