Bury MBC & Zero Waste?

Bury MBC & Thrice Weekly Collections

The Local Puppet Obeys its National Master!   

LAST Wednesday night, Bury Council's Labour Cabinet agreed to implement thrice weekly collections of grey bins, this decision represents not just a defeat for the public belief in regular bin collections but it is a defeat for the trade unions and particularly Unite, a union which last year ran a campaign to gain 100% membership at Bradley Fold Waste Depot.   

As I watched the Bury Labour councillors and the manager at Bradley Fold deliberate, it demonstrated, yet again, that local councils are now the mere puppets of a national government and have very little sovereignty of their own.  Time and again questioners from the floor argued that this measure was not a 'green agenda' but a cost saving exercise to please the national budget demands of Westminster.   

The Bury Labour Cabinet chaired by Councillor Mike Connolly, might just as well have been a delegation of functionaries from the offices of the national government of David Cameron.  Why do we still have this pretence of local democracy when the purse strings are controlled by London?   

They all danced merrily as Labour men and women to the tune of the Tory led Coalition, just as the national government dances in step with the market and the financiers.  Why bother to vote when this is how things are determined?   

I rose to ask the question on behalf of my members at Bradley Fold, knowing full well that no amount of fine oratory or eloquence would change anything at last Wednesday's Cabinet meeting, and asked:

 'What will happen when the “side waste” that collects in mountainous quantities beside the Bury wheelie-bins owing to the new the reduced collections?  As I know that the bosses at Bradley Fold are anxious to move the goalposts to make bin-men collect the "side waste".' 

The Bradley Fold manager Neil Long, who had been brought in to answer such a question, rose to say:  'We are aware of this problem and such debris will be mopped-up by our follow up teams.'   

There was concern that for those with big families the space in the bins would be insufficient and would lead to the increasing problems of vermin and fly-tipping.   

We were urged to rejoice in the spirit of the green agenda of Bury Council and that the Council's aim was 'zero waste'.   

I argued that:  'The talk of plans to create “zero waste” in Bury by the council bosses begins to sound like headline grabbing by an ambitious management and local politicians.'   

It all fell on deaf ears as the plan was rubber-stamped by the Labour Cabinet and the next day the Bury Times ran a headline announcing a 'BACKLASH OVER BINS' and saying that 'politicians, members of the public and a trade union (Unite) are spearheading opposition against the proposals...' , and it was reported that a lad from Radcliffe, Daniel Barkess, had handed in an online petition with 3,318 signatures on.