© Avenuesandalleyways

The council sent a consultation letter to many of the residents in our area.  The letter stated that they wanted our opinion on changing the current bin system to that of communal bins.  The reasons stated were to “To assist us to help your streets become cleaner and safer,”

We surveyed an nearby areas which already have the communal bin system and our findings were very worrying indeed.  Far from finding clean and safe streets, we found that many of the communal bin areas were a disgusting, unhygienic mess.  See photo albums at the top right of this page.  We also found exasperated residents who have repeatedly asked the council for help dealing with the mess (click the speech bubbles above for several quotations).

We obtained 107 signatures and several people wrote personalised objections to the council representatives.  Our petition letter (without signatures for privacy reasons) can be viewed here.  We also included a photo appendix with evidence of the failure in other areas nearby which can be viewed here.

We recommend that you carefully consider your response if your area is being considered for a change over to communal bins. Communal bins may have proved successful in some areas, but have been a dismal failure in others as shown in the photo album above.

Following our petition, and the many objection letters, the council agreed that it would not introduce communal bins to our area. We thanked the council for listening to us and continuing to work with us to improve our area.

We are now undertaking an alleyway transforming project which you can read about here.