Bury Council Boss Gets 'Social Isolation'!

by Brian Bamford

Who Has Priority? 

 Editor:  Yesterday Joe Bailey a retired street cleansing worker, wrote to N V the following letter in which he questioned the situation for refuse workers etc. in the light of the current coronavirus:

 

'Not wishing to stick my nose where it is not wanted and I know the Coronavirus alarm has to be treated with delicate caution. Having said that, I've heard nothing from the media on bin men , postman, tip workers carrying out their duties.

'I have had a quick look at council websites re COVID-19.

Bin men do not always wear gloves (cloth or PVC) when handling bins. They have to touch the same lifting gear (buttons etc).

'Then their hands are all over the cab. The viruses have a 48 hour life span on plastic surfaces according to the BBC. Obviously I don’t have a degree in public health - but a lot of bins are not very clean – whether the scum sustains the virus is open to question – even if the handle is wiped. Also members of the public touch the bins with their bare hands. Most go out on collection day. Bin men are not insured for work on private property.

'The bin men are bunched up in the cab. Street Cleansing staff are usually in confined cabs.

'The BBC presenters sit at least a metre apart in an open atmosphere.

'I know you know all this. I will be copying this to Hazards.

'It would be good if the council published the risk assessment on their websites.'

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When we contacted the Bury binmen we got the following response from a binman at Bradley Fold Waste Depot in Bury:

Hi Brian

'We had a meeting last week outside with his Lordship (Glenn Stuart - manager at Bradley Fold Waste Depot), to which he told us that we are priority workers at bury mbc (dont know if that's his words or someone further up the line).  So for the moment its carry on as normal and come in if you feel you are not affected. We asked about social distancing (this is why he had the meeting outside)yet we were still sent out with 3 crew members in a cab!!  So once again Bury mbc are quoting the advice yet ignoring it when it comes to the bins. Dont know if things will change tomorrow will let you know. The advice from Kent council you sent me sounds good advice.  He did however (you'll like this)end the meeting by telling us that his wife suffers from auto immune disease and from Friday last week, he will be self isolating for 12 weeks!!'

Fancy that!  In't it alright for some?

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Dodgy Jobs & Precarious Employment

by Brian Bamford

AT the 5th Policy Conference of the Unite union last July, two motions were carried calling for campaigns to 'ensure that all workers employed on temporary, permanent, or fixed term contracts or through agencies should have their rights and protections from the first day of employment...'

These policy changes followed an incident at Bury MBC's waste depot at Bradley Fold last February*, in which an agency worker querying his own rights and status with the manager ended up in a altercation in which the manager got a black eye.  That agency worker had done 8-years on the bins in insecure employment; a binman at Rochdale MBC, we learn, had done 15-years in the same situation.

Other workers on the bins at the Bury Depot, believed that there was a cover-up about who struck the first blow.  The matter was reported to the police but later dropped.

Concern a year ago was triggered by the liquidation of Carillion in January, but after the dramatic event at Bradley Fold the Bury Unite Commercial Branch accused the Union of 'being asleep at the wheel'. 

Since the Bury Unite Branch issued a series of Freedom of Information requests about the goings on in Bury MBC with regard to agency workers, the bosses have started taking on staff on 6-month temporary contracts.   The worry is that the though the permanent staff on the bins in Bury are mainly in the union few, if any, of these temporary workers are.

What is now being demanded by the Unite union now is to establish that if a worker is under the control or direction of a company like Bury MBC, then that worker will be deemed to be an employee and enjoy all the rights that status infers.

Read more:  
* northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2018/09/lovely-black-eyes-agency-workers.htm

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Lovely Black Eyes & Agency Workers

by Brian Bamford
 Health & Safety in the Waste Manager's Office?

PEALS of laughter greeted the announcement at a meeting of the Unite Greater Manchester Activists last February, that a waste disposal manager had ended-up sporting a black-eye after an interview with an agency worker at Bury Council's Bradley Fold Waste Depot.  Last January an agency worker had been querying his own status, having been 8-years a temp working for Bury MBC on insecure tenure and unable to get a mortgage with a wife who’d just given birth.

The complaining agency worker, who'd done an 8-year unsecure stint, told Northern Voices that Mr. Stuart had claimed in justification that there were agency workers in other local authorities in Greater Manchester who had done up to 15-years as agency workers.

No-one knows for sure what took place next in the office of the waste manager, Glenn Stuart, but there seems to have been an altercation which resulted in a complaint to the police on the 23^rd, January from Mr. Stuart who ended up with a black-eye. Northern Voices contacted the Greater Manchester Police in April, and asked if the police were investigating this as an allegation of common assault and requesting the crime or log number on this case?

Although it's clear that this case was reported to the police it seems that it turned out to be 'one person's word against another', because we're told that Mr. Stuart keeps the blinds closed in his office.

The secretive Mr. Stuart has a thing about privacy, and doesn't like the fact that in 2016 some folk in Bury took to photographing the town's overflowing bins.  At that time on May 1st, 2016 The Mail on Sunday journalist, Martin Delgardo, reporting on the management style of Stuart in a headline wrote: 'Bin tsar who slashed collections to one every THREE WEEKS tries to crack down on opposition by banning photographs of overflowing bins'.


However, after the 'violent' incident at Bradley Fold, a letter was sent out to binmen and other members of staff reminding everyone of the importance of health and safety and the Council's commitment to a safe environment.  There is talk of a 'them and us attitude' in the Bradley Fold waste depot, and some cynics among the workforce are muttering about a cover-up as to what really went on behind the Venetian blinds of the waste manager's office last January.

As the headline 'Bin Tsar' in the Mail on Sunday report in 2016 above suggests, Mr. Stuart has a reputation as something of a zealot in the realm of rubbish collection, which he seems to covert.  

As the Mail on Sunday stated he was then warning that he may get tougher still to force the people of Bury into recycling, saying:  ‘People have been given ample opportunity to fall in line. We need to formulate a plan of action in terms of enforcement.’

The scheme’s opponents claimed it had led to an increase in rat infestation.   With Iain Gartside, leader of the Conservative group on Bury council, saying:  ‘It’s an absolutely disgrace, with overflowing bins and increased fly-tipping.’

Meanwhile in last week's Bury Times the leader of Bury Council, Labour Councillor Rishi Shori said:  'Fly-tipping is a growing problem in the borough, although the council has allocated additional resources to tackle the problem in three main ways, focusing on prevention:  the installation of CCTV cameras in fly-tipping hotspots, enforcement and, where possible, by removing fly-tipped items, although this is becoming increasingly more difficult due to the budget pressures we are under.' 

Recently we can't help but notice that the 'installation of CCTV cameras in fly-tipping hotspots' has had the consequence of shifting the flytipping from the town centres and urban areas of Bury to the more posh, leafy zones like Tottington and Stubbins.  No wonder the Tories are upset.

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Bullying, Positive Behaviour & Culture

ALMOST a year ago, a report was disclosed to the Bury Times that claimed one in ten council staff at Bury MBC had been bullied in the last 18-months up to March 2016, and a quarter felt unable to cope with their work demands.
Last Monday (23rd, January 2017), a body entitling itself the Positive Behaviour Task Force met to consider the situation.
The Bury Positive Behaviour Task Force is in theory composed of representatives of the unions UNISON and Unite the Union, as well as representatives of management and HR (Human Relations).  Initially the Unite union which is the biggest union at Bradley Fold Waste Depot, was not invited to participate on this Task Force, more recently however, after complaints from the Unite Commercial Branch, a full time officer was incorporated onto the Task Force but has yet to attend.
In a response to a question about the level of alleged bullying up to March last year a Council spokesperson said:  'The Council takes any allegations of bullying and harassment very seriously and we place the utmost importance on dignity and respect for all our employees... (I)n response to this question 26 Dignity at Work complaints have been investigated in the past three years (6 since April 2015) and there have been 18 cases which have been handled via the mediation route (4 since April 2015).'
The spokesperson then added:
'In terms of taking action, a positive action taskforce has been established along with an Employee focus group to make our policies work effectively on the ground in practice.  We have a further survey planned for the autumn which will be anonymous as are all of the staff surveys we carry.'*
Speaking to the Bury Times (2nd, March 2016), Labour Councillor, Sandra Walmsley, said:
'I don't think there is a culture problem at the council with bullying.  If that was the case, we would have known about it before the survey.... I am hoping the taskforce will get to the bottom of this issue.'
At Bradley Fold Waste Depot there has been various complaints of forms of harassment over the last decade or so, yet at the time of writing the Unite union which represents the bin-men has not had an update or as yet seen any of the minutes of the meetings of the Positive Behaviour Task Force.  Nor, as yet, has the Bury Unite Commercial Branch representing the Bury bin-men seen the results of the 'further survey planned for the autumn (2016)' promised by Bury MBC.
This must be troubling.  
*  https://councildecisions.bury.gov.uk/documents/.../Questions%20responses%20web.p

Bury Binmen back Ian Allinson in Unite's Top Job

YESTERDAY afternoon, a Bury Unite Commercial Branch meeting of mostly binmen in the Queen's Hotel on Bradley Lane, became one of the first Unite Branches to nominate Manchester lad, Ian Allinson, for the next General Secretary of Unite the Union. 
In putting forward Mr. Allinson for the Bury branch's nomination the Branch Secretary, Brian Bamford, said that he was not so keen on 'coronations' in matters of political or union issues, and that he felt that it was important that the Unite membership get as wide a choice as possible to lead them. 
Mr. Bamford made it clear that while he respected the current leader Len McCluskey he did not think it was healthy for the union to have a narrow choice of candidates. 
There was some debate about if by putting Ian Allinson on the ballot paper the Bury Branch would be splitting the so-called 'left-vote', and one or two people at the meeting said 'Who's heard of Ian Allison outside of Manchester?'
Someone else claimed that Len McCluskey was a well-established experienced officer, and Mr. Allinson was a new boy on the block, so wouldn't it be better to support someone more knowledgeable?
In response it was then argued that many people hadn't heard of Jeremy Corbyn before he was elected as the Labour leader.  Others thought that some officers spend too long in office, and thereby lose contact with the rank and file membership.  Ian Allison, who is a convenor at Fujitsu in Manchester, is not a paid official.
The only other candidate for the General Secretary's job, Gerard Coyne, is a Unite regional officer in the Midlands.
After considering the proposals of all three candidates the meeting voted unanimously to nominate to nominate Ian Allinson for General Secretary.
For more go to:
www.iansunitesite.org.uk/

Missed Bins in Greater Manchester

THE troubled Bradley Fold Waste Depot in Bury was not able to 'collate their figures to respond' to a Freedom of Information request to Bury Council for the figures showing the number of complaints in the borough about missed bin collections.  Last Wednesday the Manchester Evening News ran a report which showed that there had been 'more than 10,000 complaints over missed wheelie bin collections received by councils in Greater Manchester this year' so far.


Bury, Bolton, Oldham and Rochdale councils had said 'they couldn't collate their figures to respond'.  Manchester City Council shows the worst level of complaints with 3,169 complaints this year, compared with 2,560 last year.


The Manchester Even News says:  'the situation seems to be getting worse as according to the figures, just 8,033 reports were submitted for the whole of last year.'  It's only late October up to now.


The trade union, the Bury Unite Commercial Branch, has been warning for the last two years that the position will deteriorate owing to the decision by councils like Bury and now Rochdale etc, to reduce the number of rounds and regular collections.


Sources close to the councils in Greater Manchester tell us that because of the reduced collections that there is more side waste being left of the streets and of course more fly tipping. 

Bury Unite's Ethical Stand

Struggling Against Surveillance & Blacklisting

FROM about 2005, the Bury Unite Commercial Branch became involved in a dispute with Bury Council when the T&G shop-steward at Bradley Fold Waste Disposal Depot, Joe Cleary, was sacked on the pretext of accepting a bribe for the removal of some trade waste:  Bury Council at that time, used a security officer to use a hand-held cam-corder to film a working team of Bury bin-men under the RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act).  The bribe which the sacked bin-men team were alleged to have accepted from an Asian shopkeeper was a bottle of Strawberry Volvic. 

In the end Bury MBC spent a large sum on legal costs fighting to dismiss the men and finally ended-up settling by paying a five-figure sum to Mr. Cleary.  The Bury branch of what is now Unite backed Joe Cleary throughout his fight with the Council, as did the Unite union officer Kathy Rutherford. 

I well remember talking to Kevin Coyne, the then North West regional officer of what is now Unite, and he encouraged me to continue our branch's struggle against surveillance.  He did say something of interest at the time when I told him that Bury Council was under Conservative control, he said 'Oh, that's good for us!' as it doesn't reflect badly on the Labour Party. 

Does party politics influence trade union activism at the top?  Are full time trade union functionaries less likely to oppose if a local Council is ruled by a Labour majority? 

Whatever the case this predilection for party politics didn't impact upon the moral integrity and ethics of the Bury Unite Branch.  After a militant shop steward such as Joe Cleary was dismissed using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, the Bury Unite branch put in a series of Freedom of Information requests to Bury MBC and critical reports followed in the Bury Times written by the journalist Dave Thomson, and another report in the Mail on Sunday.  Because of all the bad publicity arising from the Joe Cleary case it appears that Bury MBC is no longer using this type of crude covert surveillance.   

Because of this traumatic history of involvement in covert surveillance with Bury MBC, Bury Unite Commercial Branch has since taken to supporting the Manchester electricians in their own campaign against the covert surveillance with regard to the blacklist in the British building trade.   Bury Unite branch has done this through its affiliation to Tameside Trade Union Council.  Our latest involvement as a branch has been through the secretary's joint-authorship of the book 'Boys on the Blacklist',  and now the motion on ethical procurement presented to the North West Local Authority Regional Industrial Sector Committee (Risc) on the 5^th,  March 2015.   

Unfortunately, for some reason that has yet to be fully explained, the North West Local Authority Risc, under the distinguished chairmanship of Sidney Graves and Deputy Chair Nick Parnell, failed to be able to move the motion.   An investigation into what happened has now been set-up by the North West Finance & General Purpose Committee. 

It seems that in the real world that ethics and politics are not very comfortable companions.

'Barmy' Bury Bin Collections about to get worse!

LAST January, the Cabinet minister, Eric Pickles, described the the state of bin collections in Bury in Greater Manchester as 'barmy' because the council had introduced fortnightly collections instead of weekly.  The minister may now think that the bosses at Bury MBC have totally lost touch with reality because yesterday management at Bradley Fold told the refuse collection workforce that they instend to introduce collections every 'three weeks' from October this year.

Today's Bury Times reports:

'HOUSEHOLDERS in Bury are set to become the first in England to have their grey bins emptied once every three weeks under ambitious plans to create a “zero waste” borough.'   

This decision will be subject to the approval at a Bury Cabinet meeting next Wednesday, and if the proposals go ahead, recycling bins will be emptied more frequently as council bosses strive to push recycling rates up from 47.6 per cent to 60 per cent or more by March, 2016.  

Grey bins, which cater for non-recyclable household waste, are currently emptied every two weeks.  It is estimated that the planned changes would result in an annual savings of £862,000 in waste treatment and disposal costs. 

Already the workforce, many of whom are taking part in a national strike of coucil workers today, has expressed their concern to their union Unite, and it is anticipated that the citizens of Bury which has one of the best open markets in the country will not be best pleased.

Subject to approval at a Bury Cabinet meeting next Wednesday, the changes to the collection service will be introduced from early October.   

 

Bin Lids Need No Wittgenstein!

Bury Bin Men:  Springtime for Bluebottles to Skidding on Ice!

IF MR. Neil S. Long, assistant director of (Operations) at Bradley Fold Waste Depot Bury, had difficulty grasping the breeding habits of bluebottles and the incubation of maggots in the summer months; he is even more at a loss when it comes to fathoming the features of raised bin lids and PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) in winter.  In his very humble judgement Mr Long has determined that 'it was established that the basis of [a] grievance', among other things,  was:

*   You [the union, Unite] believe that a clear Policy regarding bin lids as identified by the HSE (Health & Safety Executive) should be issued.

*   You [the union, Unite] believe that current arrangements for the collection and provision of PPE should be reviewed/ revised.

Well then!  We being simple toiling bin men may well ask ourselves what is the logical alternative to what Mr. Long calls 'a clear Policy regarding bin lids'?

i)   Should Bury MBC proclaim 'an unclear bin Policy'?

ii)  Ought  Bury MBC, in its wisdom, go for 'an obscure or semi-clear bin Policy'?

iii)  Perhaps Bury MBC might have 'no bin Policy whatsoever'?

The permutations would baffle even the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, indeed this business of  bin lid health and safety at Bradley Fold is becoming worse than grasping a proposition by Wittgenstein.  The pondering and perusing at Bury of the 'safe' and 'unsafe' Policy and its 'clear' and 'unclear' aspects of bin lids is hard - as Wittgenstein said 'Denken ist schwer!' ('thinking is hard') but he also told one of his students that working on a 'building site is harder!'  Mr. Long and his panel of experts including Glen Stuart, Head of Waste Management at Bradley Fold, are no doubt thinking hard now about the health and safety aspects of bin lids, even as you dear reader take in these words, meanwhile the Bury bin men will be pushing wheelie-bins into the winter gales on Bolton Road of on a council estate in Whitefield. 

You won't be surprised, dear reader, then that in all his hard thinking and deliberations it will take Mr. Neil S. Long, Director of Operations at Bradley Fold Bury, from the 17th, December 2013 until the 21st, February 2014, before he can 'respond fully to both these issues (of bin lids and PPE)'.

Bury MBC Boss's Boob Ban at Bradley Fold

Unite Union Reps Rejected at 'near miss' Health & Safety Confab

 

THIS morning two Unite union officials, Steve Acheson and Lee Lomas, a Unite branch secretary, Brian Bamford, and a former shop steward, Dave Lord, were shown the door at a health and safety get-together called by Glenn Stuart, Head of Waste management at the Bradley Fold Waste depot of Bury MBC.   The meeting had been called at 6.45am prompt by Mr. Stuart to consider the findings of a Health & Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into a 'near miss' reversing incident by a refuse vehicle.

 

In his wisdom Mr. Stuart thought it better that the Unite union officers were not present at the event, at which, he said that he 'needed to communicate these (findings by the HSE)' to the workforce.  The inspector from the HSE had been to Bradley Fold on the 7th, November, to speak to Mr. Stuart, and had interviewed the driver and operative who had been involved in the 'near miss' incident in which a lady putting her wheelie bin out had come close to being run-over.

 

Fully suited and standing teetering acrobatically on a chair Mr. Stuart treated his staff, all garbed in their yellow high-vis jackets, to a sermon on safe working practices while his sturdy colleague and right-hand man, Terry Nieland, solemnly guarded the door.  The memorandum from Glenn Stuart reminded his men that:

'This is classed as mandatory health and safety training and it is therefore vitally important that everybody working on the collection service attends the briefing.  A register will be taken.'

 

Perhaps Mr. Stuart was too nervous to have the Unite union reps. present in the room when he gave his treaty on safe working; after all he may well have fallen arse-over-tit off the chair on which he was so deftly standing, and how would that have looked?  In his way he was only setting an example, for he often expects his staff to be equally acrobatic when they go about their rounds.

 

As for the poor lady who nearly got squashed by the bin-wagon, it seems that she was so incensed and put out by the poor unsympathetic staff response when she called-in to give her complaint, that she felt the need to go to the HSE.  One can well imagine some of those sympathetic functionaries in the public relations office saying: 

'What do you expect, if you don't get your bin out before 7am sharp, you always run the risk of being run-over by a bin wagon.'
 

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The current printed issue of NORTHERN VOICES No.14, is now available for sale at all our usual outlets in the North of England and beyond - see below. This issue N.V.14 has a Tameside Eye story about how Tameside has a history of involvement in blacklisting, it also contains an interview by Barry Woodling with George Tapp - the Salford electrician injured in May on an anti-blacklist picket. The Voices has been in the forthfront of the campaign against the blacklist since 2003 and the DAF dispute at Manchester Piccadilly, its editor, an electrician, was on the blacklist of the Economic League in the 1960s, and there was an attempt to blacklist him while he was working in Gibraltar in both 1964 and 1967, but at the time this intervention by the Foreign Office was resisted by the Gibraltarian authorities, and the Gibraltar Transport & General Workers Union.
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In Bury safety will be 'some time in the future'

SINCE the 5th, December when we placed the post 'Bury Council Sends Out Mixed Messages', it seems that the Council has admitted that the position on raised bin lids is unclear as the bin men and their union Unite at Bradley Fold have consistently argued.  In response to a formal grievance by the union representatives Glen Stuart, the manager at Bradley Fold, has now issued the following statement:
'Note that the above message may seem to contradict the message communicated to residents , which is that bin lids should always be fully closed.  This message should be viewed as a control measure designed to minimised the number of raised bin lids encountered.'

Apparently to put matters right Mr. Stuart is now proposing the following remedy:

'In the new year the council will be commencing an intensive promotional  and educational campaign designed to improve recycling and as part of this it intends to move towards the adoption of a closed bin policy at some time in the future.'

After years of arguing over health and safety this is Mr. Stuart's reluctant response to a grievance put by the bin men and their union.  Things will be put right it seems in the New Year 'some time in the future'.

Unite Newsletter at Bradley Fold Bury

REFUSE workers and other Bury MBC employees at the waste depot at Bury MBC's Bradley Fold were treated to a workshop organised by Unite at 6am this morning and a union newsletter was distributed.  This is third such event in the last two weeks and has had a great reception from the workforce.

In these workshops the organisers spell out the benefits of awareness about workplace rights and procedures.  Sessions have include appeals to the shop-floor to explain the problems existing both on the site and throughout the workplace system.  The Unite organisers are highly experienced activists from across Greater Manchester such as Mark Doyle former from Manchester Airport and Steve Acheson a leading figure in the national campaign against the blacklist.

Workers are encouraged to take up their cases collectively.  Two issues are already in the pipeline with a vast number of signatures on petitions.  The issue of no tolerance for raised bin lids has already been fought and won in two Greater Manchester authorities, and it is anticipated that this may now well become an issue at Bury MBC.  A Unite newsletter stresses that health and safety is a vital issue and something every union member should be aware of. 

In the recent past at Bradley Fold Depot, there was a rather feeble attempt to try to get an active safety representative who had been questioning the issue of raised bin lids dismissed on rather dubious grounds relating to dignity at work, this case was later thrown out at an internal disciplinary hearing.  During that case the Human Resources manager, Ursula Skinner, conducted herself in such a partisan fashion that it led to complaints from the Bury Unite branch to her boss the head of HR. 

If anyone who is considering joining Unite at Bury MBC has any problems they can contact the Unite Organiser Mark Doyle on 07739 08483 or on mark.doyle@unitetheunion.org

Preserved Lemons & Bury Black Puddings

Short-sighted Boss Neil Long got it wrong at Bury MBC

DOWN South, Bury Market is renown for its Black Puddings.  Less well known are those of its citizens dedicated to oriental cuisine.  Hence, among the good Christian persons of Bury consuming pig's blood sausages there are foreign folk eating kosher food.  With this in mind, two years ago Neil Long, a senior manager at Bury MBC, embarked with his staff on a consultation exercise in Prestwich among the Jews and in those areas of town populated by people from the Indian sub-continent.  Then Mr. Long told us at a mass meeting of refuse operatives at Bradley Fold Waste Depot, near Bury, that he had consulted with these oriental communities to assure them that by introducing a fortnightly cycle of bin collection, rather than a weekly one, there would be no resulting deterioration in the service and no increased risk to health (see 6th, September posting 'Brown Bins & "Bury Belly".').

When I questioned Mr. Long on behalf of my members, as the UNITE Branch Secretary, about the possible risks to public health of the reduced collections he dismissed this arguing that so long as the bin lids were kept tightly shut there was no health risk.  On that occasion, as I recall, Jason McKenna, the Safety Representative at Bradley Fold, pounced upon this need for securely shut bin lids.  More recently this issue of closed bin lids has become an ongoing problem as to whether open lids present a physical risk to operatives;  it has been rumoured that it may have even been an underlying factor leading to the suspension of Jason McKenna, last November.  This issue is now closed and Jason has been reinstated at Bradley Fold but is still off work owing to the stress caused by the investigation.

And yet, the assumption that closed bid lids prevent maggot infestation, as Neil Long appeared to imply, is surely wrong.  I know this to be the case because this August just gone, while the Bury binmen were going down with 'Bury Belly' (see in the humid weather conditions while emptying oriental waste, I was busy marinating a couple of pounds of cubed lamb in my fridge with onions, garlic, parsley, coriander, spices and salt.  This marination had to continue for very nearly a week, because my branch of Tescos was all out of the vital ingredient of a jar of preserved lemons and I had to go all the way to Harvey Nichols in Leeds to get one.  These preserved lemons cost me all of £6.50, but when next day I came to insert them in the lamb marinade the maggot infestation in the tagine had reached such horrific proportions that even I with my frugal Jewish habits of avoiding waste at all costs I was forced to give it up as a bad job.  Now if this kind of thing can happen in a tagine sealed with a lid on in less than a week in a fridge, what would we expect to happen in a wheelie-bin outside in a fortnight?

The morale of this tale must be that Neil Long doesn't do the cooking otherwise he would have hesitated before proposing fortnightly collections for the brown bins, especially during the Summer months.  There are clearly health risks in cutting back on bin collections.