Cornwall Councils Rubbish

Or as it is becoming known the farce that is CoryGate. Refuse not being collected, promises being broken, the whole refuse collection system in one of the most beautiful counties in the UK is a mess to say the least.

Last night on local TV, BBC Spotlight, we had representatives from the Council and Cory, the waste management company who have recently taken over the contract for the whole of the county, looking like two naughty schoolboys called to the headmasters office to explain some misdemeanour. Full of humility and apologies as they were, I for one didn't have confidence in either party to resolve what is a fairly serious problem in our county.

Cory took on this contract, worth several million pounds, from a number of waste management contractors who were performing the job in a fairly consistent and well managed way. In the small village in which I live we had a weekly refuse collection for the whole village, the black sacks and dustbins removed by 8.30 each Monday morning with rarely a missed collection and then it was usually in poor conditions when the Council hadn't gritted the roads and a several ton truck sliding down a steep hill would have been foolhardy to say the least. Every other week we had the recycling, all put in the supplied bags and collected by another smaller truck, so that meant for the less than 100 houses in the village in 78 yearly collections it was all done and dusted in a neat and timely manner. Then along came Cory.

We now have 208 yearly collections, Three coloured bags and a box. Cory in their infinite wisdom have split the village into two - half collected on one day the other half later in the week. Excuse me, but how is that efficient, or even ecologically sound, or for that matter cheaper? The place is littered with indiscreet coloured bags for two days a week, longer as was the case when collections were missed. Do the Council not realise that this is a tourist destination and refuse and recycling piled in the streets is hardly a welcome sight in any of our towns and villages.

Someone, somewhere didn't think this thing through, not only is the whole collection system flawed, but Cory can't cope with it, as for giving them two months to put things right, well if I was contracted to mow your lawn once a week and take away the clippings and the first week I didn't turn up, the second I only mowed half the grass and left the clippings and then asked for two months to sort it out I somehow don't think I'd be keeping my job for very long.

Cory are supposed to be professional, I am paying for their services, in my opinion they have had more than long enough to get it right and giving them even more is simply not an option.

One person who has been conspicuous by their absence in this matter is our County Council leader Alec Robertson, the man we pay the best part of a quarter of a million pounds a year to to run this county. The buck stops with him. Alec do your job - sort it out and make damn sure that we, the council tax payers, are not paying twice for a poor service. Apologies don't work anymore, you are in a professional situation. We all make mistakes and can forgive the odd one, but failing to prepare for such a major switchover is down to Corys management. They can get away with not doing their job properly, if I dont pay my Council Tax I go to prison.

This failure is not down to the men and women who collect our refuse, or the drivers or the office staff, but is totally the fault of management, both by Cory and Cornwall Council.

Perhaps my Dad was right, "If it ain't broke don't fix it" the cheapest option isn't always the best. At least if the recycling bags had been red white and blue we could have pretended they were bunting for the Diamond Jubilee, they couldn't even get that right!

The Death of Wadebridge

For some time now the residents of Wadebridge have been trying to stop the ingress of the giant supermarkets to our countryside. This week they lost the battle.

All I want to ask is:-
1) How when the proposed plan for a new supermarket contravened planning regulations was it passed?
2) Why is the council allowing it to be built on a green field site.
3) Why on earth does a town of 6000 people require a Tesco, Sainsbury, Lidl, Spar, Co-op and the local Pod Stores.

Falmouth has 10 x the population of Wadebridge and has 1 large supermarket.

The answer is simple - MONEY

Wadebridge had the highest increase in house prices in the country recently and therefore the supermarkets see it as a source of revenue. Do they really think that the secondhomers will support a new supermarket. They will carry on bringing down the Waitrose and M&S Food Hall goodies in their 4x4. A few incomers may well shop there, but it will take a hell of a long time before Sainsbury recover the millions it has cost them to build and equip the place. The loss of the green field site will NEVER be recovered.

The supermarkets can throw infinite resources at any appeal or planning application. They dress up their proposals in "community projects" ( A bmx track on an isolated industrial estate doesn't sound like a good idea to me unless they are going to build an ambulance station next door )
They mislead about the effect out of town supermarkets have on town centres and the number of jobs created. By jobs they mean min wage & part time. And the council are so desperate for money selling a field to the supermarket chain at some enormously inflated price means they will have more money to waste on useless projects.

In a few years time when a small group of supermarkets hold the power in food distribution and production they will do to us exactly what the Banks did, hold us to ransom because they are too powerful to let fail.

This week is a sad week for Wadebridge, they lost the battle AND they lost the war. But worse than that - we, the general public will end up paying for it in one way or another.

The Chelsea Flower Show

I have a friend, K who lives on the south coast she recently wrote to me regarding the Chelsea Flower Show, I thought it might be a nice idea to have a guest slot so, for a change, here is someone else's ramblings.

I've watched "Gardener's World" since the days of Geoff Hamilton, at which time the Chelsea Flower Show merited just one programme. Now we have an hour of Chelsea every night of the week but it seems to me there is little regard for the what the show is about - ie. flowers. We've seen "rival" designers discussing the pros and cons of a garden made mostly of decking; actors expounding on how they've loved gardening since they were knee-high to a grasshopper; a poet reciting her work to some bored visitors; a manic presenter running around to congratulate the medal winners and sundry other incidental "fillers" that have little interest to most people who enjoy gardens.

How much time have the BBC cameras spent in the floral pavillions? Precious little. Why were the interesting interviews with David Austin [the creator of the English rose] and Jekka McVicar [herb grower] so much shorter than the one with the Norwegian designer whose garden seems to be tipped as "best in show"? Has he produced a fabulous garden which anyone would love to have? In my opinion, no. It's just another arrangement of concrete, water, hedging and a couple of cream sofas. It looks like something you'd see in the reception of a posh company head office, or terrace restaurant of a hotel.

I know the BBC have the facility to "press the red button" for 12 hour coverage of Chelsea, but I don't want the telly on all day. I just want an interesting programme covering the gardens and flowers. Prune the celebs and the hard landscaping, and let's have an hours worth of gardens and flowers. It would at least help to make up for "Gardener's World" which is now like a gardening slot for kiddies. And in my opinion, James May's plasticine garden was great!

Think I agree with you there K.

Do they REALLY expect us to trust them?

It appears, apparently, that the actual cost of the Newquay Airport Fiasco, the Council cock up and the details of the cost of claims made by individuals and airlines will not be made available until AFTER the Council elections in June. You may remember that Cornwall Council didn't get a licence in time and the airport was closed for some time, with the Council leaving themselves wide open to compensation claims for cancelled flights and lost revenue. All I can say is how the hell do they expect us to trust them when they are blatantly allowing this cover up. The electorate are being duped into voting for a dishonest council and for councillors who may have been responsible for the problems. This isn't democracy by any stretch of the imagination. Cornwall Council should be ashamed of itself, it makes even Westminster look honest.

Those Ill Gotten Gains..........Again

Mps expenses are in the news again so I am not going to reiterate the morality of claiming "within the rules" and the other pityful bleatings of our elected representatives, but I will say this. If you want the bankers to repay their ill gotten gains then you better do something about the vast number of "mistakes" that seem to have appeared in the somewhat odd and irregular claims put forward in Westminster. Are our Mps really that careless? If they are should they be in Parliment at all?

Westminster should make sure its own house is in order before starting to criticise others. Personally I would sack the lot and start again. Public money is just that, PUBLIC, not to be plundered for private gain by anyone.

As for a 2nd home allowance, Mp's should be given a purpose built accommodation block where they can stay and work whilst in London, Second homes simply add to the problem. Just think what could have been done with the money that has been wasted on so called "expenses" over the last few years.

This episode has damaged Parliment permanently, what little respect was once held for MPs has now evaporated to an all time low and it will take an awful lot to get the tarnish off their reputation.

If you are asking Sir Fred Goodwin to repay his pension then I think you could start with repaying your little "extras".

Looking After The Kids

A breeding pair of Robins have been nesting in the ivy in a quiet corner of the garden, they have been flying too and fro every few minutes for the last few days, carrying food for the chicks or clearing out the nest. In human terms it would be exhausting. Here's just a brief video of their activity, just imagine doing that for 12+ hours a day - if you listen really hard you can hear the chicks tweeting when the parents enter the nest, they are very fast though, blink and you will miss it!

What the Hell is going on?

The Riley graves at Eyam

Copyright © John Beres 2003-2009

Just looking at the headlines this week you would think that we are heading for a real life enactment of the BBC series "Survivors", or at least some catastrophic medical wipeout of the human race on a par with the Great Plague of 1666. It's flu for goodness sake! Yes, tragically people can die from it, but its hardly the Black Death. Why do the media have to whip these things up to a frenzy and cause mass panic. Yesterday on the BBC site 95% of the public comments to the Swine Flu item were suggesting it was over the top and panicing. If it really is that serious why the hell are we allowing flights into or out of Mexico and why arent we isolating people who have been anywhere near the place. The old Eyam strategy would work just as well as it did in the 17th century. Today I noticed the BBC have removed all its public comments on the subject. Maybe our politicians are just so unbelievable that until something actually happens no one takes them seriously them.

If the government want to panic the population then they are going the right way about it. Perhaps this is just an exercise in mass hysteria. One thing I know if this thing ends up the same way as Bird Flu or SARS then this government have cried "WOLF" too many times.