Minutes of meeting of 22nd March 2007

NEWTOWN AREA RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION
HELD 22 MARCH 2007 AT WESLEY ROAD CLUB AT 8:00PM
Attending: Fran Markotic, Steve Cladingboel, Drew Thomas, Mark McLauchlan, Graham Hedley, Douglas Chisholm, Justin Hodds, Lisa Etherton, Nicola Horrell, James Crompton, Sharon Draper, Colin Spanswick, Ms Whalen, Lesley Webb, Diana Jones, Mr & Mrs Lewis, Lesley Webb, Julie Higdon (PCSO), Graham Lawes (WWDC)
Apologies: Claudia Huwald, Joan Whalen,
Steve Cladingboel kindly agreed to chair this meeting, as no volunteers for the post have yet come forward. After welcoming new attendees and explaining NARAs function, he suggested that the minutes be read individually, rather than he going through them verbally, and that unless urgent, any matters arising should be deferred to the next meeting so we had as much time as possible to devote to the issue of rubbish and recycling. This change in procedure was agreed by the meeting and minutes were subsequently approved without amendment.
SC introduced Graham Lawes, Operations Manager, West Wiltshire District Council, who was to talk about the recent changes to recycling collections, and other new ideas. He is in charge of waste collection, recycling, environmental enforcement and street cleaning. He has, in an effort to improve the services offered, been looking at local areas and visiting residents to poll their views. He advised that WWDC charge residents less than 50p per week to collect their rubbish and 20p per week to sweep the roads. He outlined the staffing levels he had to accomplish this and general resources, and because these are limited, his department is initiating the “local pride” project. This is designed to give residents a voice, a channel, to get things changed and gave as recent example a flytipper who has been charged and will be going to Court following a resident’s tip off – Graham’s staff had been able to discover who had dumped the rubbish, as it had not degraded to illegibility. He also mentioned the problems of abandoned supermarket trolleys, and that because it is so difficult to enforce a ban on dropping litter, he is looking at education to encourage more care for the environment. WWDC will also be looking to increase the number of litter bins and engaging the support and assistance of communities.
There is a new contractor for rubbish collections, Focsa who have been trailing Cleanaways’ collectors so as to see the routes and processes. The company are to bring in new vehicles which can be tracked. Graham also said that government targets demanded a reduction in the amount of landfill waste of some 91,000 tons by 2012, and that recycling is the only way. Unfortunately, due to EU regulations as to the standard of compost necessary, WWDC have now had to implement very strict rules governing what can be composted – and cardboard is not one of them. Moreover, not even raw vegetable peelings are allowed because of possible contamination from meat products which may have been on the same chopping board! Therefore, only grass and plant cuttings will now be allowed.
Graham went on to describe how he is trying to create more “Bring” sites i.e. smaller, local recycling bins, at locations throughout Trowbridge and West Wiltshire, but is often stymied by the problem of who will manage such a site.
He recognised the littering problems caused by black bin bags being removed from over-filled bins and left by the rubbish collectors, which then get split, the contents spilled and subsequently blown all over the streets; in future, Focsa must advised Graham’s department when they have had to do this, so that he can then quickly contact the premises who overfill their bins and enforce the regulations concerning same.
SC raised the issue of a conflict of interest in that it appeared that WWDC seem now to be motivated by profit if they will only collect contents of green bins if they can make money by being composted and the resulting compost being sold; and that their remit to remove our rubbish is coming second to that. He said that he only puts cardboard in his bin, as he has no garden, and why should he have to take it to the recycling centre himself if WWDC’s remit is to collect our waste. Graham said that returning to a weekly grey bin collection is not an option and invited suggestions from us as to a solution, given that recycling has become pretty much obligatory. There was discussion around community recycling bins for cardboard and plastic bottles, and a need for Roses Bakery site to have a larger blue bin to cope with the amount of rubbish the tenants create. NH wondered what would happen in the interim whilst a solution was being sought to the cardboard problem. The meeting agreed that a cardboard recycling bin was likely to get “torched” sooner or later.
FM proposed an experiment in Newtown whereby our green bins would ONLY contain cardboard waste which could then be taken to the cardboard recycling centre, rather than the green waste centre for composting. The meeting were enthusiastic as the majority, when polled, said that most of their “green” bin waste was cardboard. Graham thought this might be a viable solution and that because Newtown has its own particular problems (high density living and narrow streets) it was an area his department were going to keep an eye on anyway. An action group was set up (Nicola, Lisa, Mark, Drew, Sharon) who will coordinate with him to set up an initial survey within Newtown as to residents’ opinions regarding cardboard collection. SC also proposed that a “bring” site for plastic bottles would also be a useful change. The action group are to meet between 26-30 March and hopefully will be able to get a leaflet prepared for delivery by our members to all residents, to find out their views on the ideas.
The issue of “lost” bins in Henderson Close and Gloucester Road was also raised, and Graham said that he is doing a survey of bin usage in Trowbridge so that more efficient placements could be made.
After general discussion, SC then brought the meeting to a close, thanking Graham for his most informative talk which had elucidated WWDC’s difficulties and our concerns, and hoped that the experiment would be successful.
If you see anyone flytipping, contact Graham Lawes on 01225 776655 or email on glawes@westwiltshire.gov.uk as soon as you can, so that the tipper may be caught and, given sufficient evidence, prosecuted.
Dates for further meetings were then identified (although some had to be changed subsequently due to the room we use having been booked by others on the Wednesdays) and the meeting closed at 9:20pm
NEXT MEETINGS: THURSDAY 26 APRIL 2007
THURSDAY 24 MAY 2007
THURSDAY 21 JUNE 2007
THURSDAY 26 JULY 2007
ALONG WITH THESE MINUTES IS A POSTER FOR THE NEXT MEETING. IT WOULD BE MOST HELPFUL TO NARA IF YOU WERE ABLE TO PUT IT IN A FRONT WINDOW (only needs to be a week or so before the meeting ) SO AS TO ADVERTISE OUR EXISTENCE AND ENCOURAGE NEW ATTENDEES.