After years of bringing the blight of rubbish to the attention of South Holland District Council (SHDC), I feel it is time for the decent, respectable people of Spalding town to insist that SHDC, as the elected representatives of the people, take a much more pro-active stance to the rubbish on the streets.
Neighbouring councils (Boston and South Kesteven) provide bins for residents waste.
SHDC provide plastic sacks, which are left strewn all over the streets, mostly by inconsiderate people who stuff them onto the street at any time they are full.
Especially now, in the age of plastic enlightenment, SHDC still persists in buying black and green sacks thus contributing to the total contamination of our environment. Why?
When recycling became an issue some decade or more ago, SHDC provided everyone with a little green box for the glass, plastic and paper waste.
That didn’t work, so SHDC gave us plastic sacks, which now litter the streets of the SHDC area.
The sacks have become smaller and thinner which means waste is no longer contained.
Should you have the misfortune of running out of sacks before the next delivery, you have to buy them, as you cannot now visit the council palace to get some more (due to the abuse of the system!)
Green Lane, Spalding is on a direct route to large housing estates in the area, and with the profusion of takeaways and places to buy foreign beer and cigarettes, it is a prime location for anybody to dispose of their cartons, cans and other detritus.
Extra rubbish bins in Green Lane have been requested, but at a cost of £250 (to cover the cost of an immoveable concrete base), have so far been denied.
Having been away from Spalding on a short caravan break, we arrived home to find a nasty, disgusting mess of detritus at the side of No. 1 Havelock Street, in Green Lane.
The Green Sack operatives from the Refuse Collection Team cannot be blamed for not collecting the mess – it was not recycling!
The Black Sacks operatives are not tasked with collecting Green Sacks, so Green Lane remains a rubbish tip!
I therefore decided to don my plastic gloves, get out the pick-up stick, and clean up the gutters in Green Lane between Cross Street and Havelock Street, including somebody else’s rubbish.
The result was two full sacks of rubbish which was not exactly pleasant to deal with!
Beer cans and bottles, nappies, dog waste, cigarette cartons, old food, takeaway containers, old rotting cardboard, snack packets, crisp bags, etc., many of which seem to blow about in strong winds and land up in our front garden!
Those sacks of rubbish are now awaiting collection and are gracing the front of our house.
I now intend to send SHDC a bill for cleaning up this mess – how much? Shall we say £50 for the effort involved and 50p for the sacks provided.
With council tax ever on the rise, no doubt SHDC will bleat it has no funds to change the system of rubbish collection which it misguidedly instigated years ago.
Add £40 to the tax bill next year to provide every household with bins, convert the refuse trucks to enable collection (out of reserved funds) and get the area that SHDC controls cleaned up!
Paul Matten
Green Lane, Spalding
