Vote for What?

[rabbit]

In today`s Mail, I am asked to vote for something that is not made clear.

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/it-s-your-vote-1-5195439

It`a an extra bin for households, but what is it for?

Is it a wheelie bin?

What colour is it? Purple would be nice.

Where am I going to put it.? I`ve already had to move the car out into the street to make room in the front garden for all the other bins.

[tankerville]

H.B.C. have a mind to save us  taxpayers money...

I have at present a Brown Bin for garden waste. Green Bin household waste. Blue Box tin's & glass. Blue Bag Papers. White Bag cardboard.

BUT What will it cost us..?? 

[Stig of the Seaton Dump]

I have a brown bin for garden waste ...live in a terraced street so that is handy.

After the lorry comes along to empty zero brown bins the road sweeper turns up to clean up any invisible garden waste accidentally dropped.

I guess it ticks a box somewhere 

[bill]

I don't live in Hartlepool any longer but I do remember a few years ago when the council emptied the EMPTY green waste bins the day after Boxing Day while the green bins were all overflowing - not due to be emptied until the following week.

I'm glad I moved to Stockton where my green bin gets emptied every week and my green waste BAG gets emptied every other week AND they take as many other bags of garden rubbish as you care to put out.

Sorry if that sounds like gloating.

[rabbit]

Any one know what happened to the proposal for Hartlepool to share some council services with other local councils?

This was proposed as a way forward to save money.

Darlington was mentioned for some reason, but the town seems too far to make economic sense.

[steveL]

I think the bottom line is this new scheme is projected to save money. HBC has been talking to Darlington and Redcar about sharing services - not sure if it includes refuse collection but the service is contracted out so the economics depend on where the service vehicles are based I guess.

I don't think the penny has really dropped yet as just how much of a financial mess HBC is actually in. Some of it is self-inflicted and, despite what the council itself says, there are still lots of areas where it can save money. That said, the major part of the financial mess has been brought about by the cuts in funding to local authorities (another 2% cut was announced yesterday). Critical as we are of HBC, the scale of the cuts is enough to run even the best of organisations off the rails. It's going to get bad and we've hardly seen the start of it yet.