| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Labour's new £1 million garden tax | |
| Posted by: | Mark Kehoe | |
| Date/Time: | 12/09/11 14:38:00 |
| I don't often take part in this sort of stuff but having heard locally (not just in Ealing but in Greenford and Southall, I felt compelled to have a look at what the fuss is about. The myopic vision of the proposals is quite remarkable. It demonstrates an inability of comprehending benefits, practicality and costs. I'm not a fan of political side taking but why is it that a Labour adminstration in this borough manages to make such a horlicks of things, especially when it comes to contracts and simple day to day things. As has already been mentioned, both administrations over nearly 30 years have managed to get things quite wrong, often glaringly so and often at huge expense. Poor decisions are something that any of us can make, but all too often the poor descisions are simply to spite an opposing party and are based on politics leaving common sense drifting in a row boat without oars or a rudder. The last administration managed to sort out the mess left by Cllr Cudmore ( a really nice chap but way out of his depth) and co. to a reasonable degree. In some cases (This area in particular) they managed to get years of poor and inadequate cleansing and refuse services to one of the best in London. It would be nice to think that the current administration could focus it's attention on the many other aspects of the borough that still need sorting and do as good a job at sorting those problems out, rather than unpicking what works well. Purely as seems more than obvious out of spite and partly because they lack the ability to tackle real problems. All too often we see things in this country that work OK messed up when politicians get their hands on them followed by huge expenditure to put right the mess caused. Every now and then something eventually gets put right. Only for it to get undone by whatever it is that goes on in their heads be it envy, spite, party politics or pure incompetence. Cllr Bassam Mahfouz may be well intended but his arguments reveal a real flaw in his understanding of society and how things work or not. His methods are not far short of blackmail and presumably he has resorted to that to cover for the fact that his proposals will probably end up saving nothing or even costing dear. NB 70% of councils have not moved to 'Forced wheelie bins'. That fact is untrue. 70% of councils who USE wheelie bins forced the issue. The proportion of wheelie bins overall is a much lower figure. Wheelie bis are a practical solution in rural areas and more modern suburban areas where the vast majority of residences have driveways, wider footpaths and grass verges. Things that most of this borough does not have. Wheelie bins have proved to be an expensive problem in denser urban areas with a high rate of insurance claims from damages and injuries caused by mishandling, and damage to private property including residential cars, Health issues have been raised from properties not being able to accomodate bins an hygenic envirionment. This will all have to be budgeted for. |