Cllr Alan Poole you're just boring us now Please GO!

Presumably having read Bignews Margate over the last couple of days, Cllr Alan Poole has revised his story concerning the debacle of Thanets waste collections, it seems he and  Thanets Councils Waste Management, oh and the union still cling to the view that it was too dangerous to clear rubbish on Christmas Eve, although clearly his more level headed colleagues, don't share his views.

A new version of events was emailed to the offices of Bignews Margate @ 17:21 Friday (I've only just noticed it) , as you can imagine, weakened by misinformation (porkies) from TDC about when bins were getting emptied, I took a break, anyhoo ignoring  the adjusted info,  there was this ray of sunshine amongst the bull "it is anticipated we will have completed any outstanding collections by the end of planned collections on Saturday".

As you may spot, a weasel worded promise, which you'll be surprised, left large areas still full of rubbish at the end of today. I won't reproduce Alan Pooles statement here because I prefer facts on these pages but if you want to see visit Thanet council La-la Land here.

Call me a cynic but on a drive around the area today, I noticed those area's you expect might not vote Labour are amongst those still neglected by our Labour Thanet Council.

Just finishing up Cllr Clive Hart has at times when the Council's reputation has been criticised dragged up one his Tory predecessors, who for his misdeeds went to prison,  a bad thing and I know I shouldn't think like this, but at least bins got emptied before he was rumbled.

I'll leave the Last word to Thanet Conservatives latest press release.

TDC Conservative Group calls for Labour Leader Clive Hart to take responsibility for Thanet’s waste and refuse service away from current portfolio holder, Cllr Alan Poole


The Conservative Group at Thanet District Council is calling for the Labour Leader, Cllr Clive Hart to take responsibility for Thanet’s waste and recycling service away from the current portfolio holder, Cllr Alan Poole.

Residents of Thanet have reported numerous and significant problems with the service since the introduction of the new Waste and Recycling regime in November.  At December’s council meeting, Shadow Cabinet Member, Cllr Simon Moores asked Cllr Poole whether, given existing problems, he was confident that Thanet residents would get their waste collected over the holiday period.  Cllr Poole answered that he was.  Feedback from residents across the Isle suggests that, in fact, there continues to be significant failings in the service.

Cllr Moores said: “I recognise that over Christmas there were issues with the weather, but given the widespread concern over this issue, not just over the holiday period but since the introduction of the new recycling regime, I think that the public have lost faith in Cllr Pooole and it is time for a change of portfolio holder.”
Conservative Group Leader, Cllr Bob Bayford said: “Incredibly, Cllr Poole has blamed Thanet residents for problems with the new service and, clearly, contingency plans for an efficient service during the Christmas and New Year period were not adequate.  Cllr Hart has already removed Cllr Poole from the Pleasurama debacle, due to his incompetent handling of the situation, and it is imperative that he should now give responsibility for Waste and Recycling to someone up to the task.” 

Rubbish update - Utter Chaos-Game over for Cllr Alan Poole?

The Thanet Gazette gives good coverage of Thanet's public health crisis as the council fail miserably to take control of the waste disposal.

Items that need to be addressed

1. Giving credible and up to date information would help allay some of the problems, unfortunately Thanet councils waste website has not been updated since Christmas Eve.

2. No explanation as to why scheduled collections didn't take place on Tuesday this week.

3. Perhaps rather than blame the public for not reading poorly produced error prone leaflets, Cllr Alan Poole ought to check his and his council colleagues literacy skills.

4 Even Alan Poole's Labour colleagues are bemused by the reason given for cancelling Christmas eve's cancelled collections, except of course that of Labours other genius Clive Hart whom lamely came up with some waffle about health and safety and utterly meaning less claim that the service was "under constant review"

5 An honest appraisal is due to the public for the inconvenience caused, another factor has been suggested to me for disruption is that a site which receives waste from Thanet was closed and nobody bothered to check this.

If Thanet Council were a business, by now, you'd expect the chief executive to have asked, whoever is responsible for bins to explain whats gone wrong, why and finally why they shouldn't be sacked, still fortunately for those working in the public sector, they are accountable to no one other than other public sector bods.

Finally assuming no North Korean type discipline exists in Thanet Labour, maybe its time for honest rank and file Labour members to give Alan Poole and Clive Hart the heave ho.

Labour's winter of incompetence or Time to bin those in charge?

If you read some of the more fanciful pronouncements of labour you might think everything in the garden is lovely, messages from Clive Harts often end on an upbeat note as did his xmas message with "onward and upwards," when most of us are  thinking downhill and backwards. 

Forgetting temporarily that Clive Hart's administration delivered a hitherto top secret 3.4 million pound debt,  in the last year the fact is they cannot even do the basics such as empty bins.

Large numbers of Thanet residents, found that their bins. were not emptied on Christmas eve, but were reassured by the councils  website claiming that attempts would be made after scheduled collections on Friday Saturday or Monday. As far as I can tell this didn't happen.

Never mind,  there was to be a collection on New Years eve, no worries, however many found yet again no collection.

From what I can glean it seems that each crew work differently some apparently taking everything others picking and choosing and of course others not bothering.

Now I accept that the weather was not the best but it certainly was not so extreme that it would have been unsafe to work, frequently work in far more hostile environments in such weather, so can only conclude that the only reason residents have been  inconvenienced, is down to poor management, you cannot blame those at the sharp end.

I understand that a very low threshold has been set for defining acceptable weather conditions for  working. It would be nice if councillor Alan Poole who as I understand gets extra money, for his role in dustbin collection could for once politely explain why you and myself and many others have a mountain of waste fermenting on our pathway.

We've recently been told of the vast sums of money invested in equipment so it seems this is a case of Thanet council having all the gear, but sadly no idea.

Finally I guess that most of us would view waste collection as a core function of Thanet council, therefore it seems to me that it's time those responsible ought to resign and I suggest that Clive Hart, Alan Poole and the chief executive would not be missed.

PS I'm told that stuff will be collected but I'll beleive when I see it, and I also understand that the decision was made at 05:00 Christmas Eve not to collect, because of the wind, I just wonder why they didn't ask crews to hang fire till 07:00