Green, Blue CRAP.............everywhere

It's now 3 weeks into the new rubbish collection regime and I have to say that despite the insanely positive spin put on it by the Council, it really isn't working very well. A lot of the problems are not the council's fault, they are down to that small minority of thoughtless, ignorant lazy people who so often cause problems for all of us. Having said that the implementation of the scheme has been done in a shoddy and fairly incompetent way for which the Council should take responsibility, which of course they won't.

The problems in my street started with the fact that their was no information as to when the first fortnightly black bag collection was to start (the information was available on the internet, but not everyone has access to that). This resulted in a load of black bags being put out on the wrong day and lying round in the street for a week, and being ripped open my foxes and the rest of us having to live with the mess for a week.

Another problem is that the Green Bin is far too big for what is being put into it, so unless you have a huge garden, it sits there outside your house like a big green monstrosity with never more than 2 inches of stuff at the bottom, why couldn't the Council supply more sensibly sized bins if they are going to change the waste system?

The problem that people now have is that where do they put the waste that cannot be re-cycled or composted, most of us will, find a way to make sensible arrangements, but the stupid, lazy and ignorant will dump it outside there houses in black bags or worse still fly tip it here there and everywhere. This is already happening.
I don't want to appear too negative though, so I thought I would give you the Sibonetic guide to making the new scheme work. I think I probably watched to much Blue Peter as a child, so here is one I made earlier!

The Kitchen

Place the caddy in a convenient location line with newspaper or a biodegradable bag (obtainable from the council or local stores such as Wilkinson's) and put your food waste in it. Though why we had to have council corporate Green, what about a choice of colours, it really doesn't match the colour scheme in my Kitchen!!

For other kitchen waste have 2 bins one for recycling and the other for anything else! Then all you kitchen waste is pre-sorted ready to go in the right place.

The Living room

Have two bins one for recycling and a little one for the odd bits you can't recycle. This can then also go straight in the correct place when full. The model of the Chocolate Labrador shown in the picture is an optional extra.

Outside

Buy a small black plastic dustbin, this one came from Wilkinsons and cost £8, line it with a Dustbin liner, put your non-recyclables in there and put the bag out on the right day for collection.

Recycling, it's not rocket science!

Rockliffe Gardens

Greenwich council describes the Gardens thus:
'These pleasant terraced, ornamental and formal gardens have beautiful water features.'

This is what they mean!






Just made a video of this little local disgrace, I would appreciate any comments



Someone has made off with a nice patio!


Even the trees have graffiti!


As usual, Greenwich Council, which is so good at initiatives, projects and regeneration, is completely crap at looking after what we already have, they seem incapable of maintaining anything.

Because they clean

graffiti rather well!!

NEWSFLASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The power of the internet (perhaps), only 2 working days after my post, (and only 1 day after writing nice things about the Council), and lo and behold shabby, decrepit, but Graffiti FREE garages, so well done to GC and Cleansweep, who were hard at work at 8.30 this morning. Am just waiting for PCEG to give me my tin of paint!! To help keep them this way.

Because some things
they do rather well!!

Am new to this blogging thing, but have done a few posts now, and was looking though what I have written and got a bit concerned that some of it was a bit too negative. Thought I might be coming across a 'ANGRY' of Plumstead Common. I also thought that, what with a link to

Greenwich Watch

on my blog and some of the comments I have made, people might mistake me for an obsessive Council hater. The reason that I have Greenwich Watch as a link is two fold. firstly they very kindly put a link to my blog on their site and secondly, as we do live in a one party state in Greenwich it is a good outlet for an alternative point of view.

Greenwich Council has only ever been controlled by Labour and that concentration of power has dangers. I do not make this as an anti Labour comment, but a general one. look how power corrupts it it stays in the same hands too long. Margaret Thatcher got so out of touch with reality that she introduced the Poll Tax, New Labour's obsession with ID cards looks like doing the same for them and Ken Livingstone (who I really admire) will, if he stays as Mayor for too long, eventually raise tax rates so high that no one will bother to work, because he is addicted to spending.

Nevertheless just because power corrupts, it doesn't mean that everything goes bad (with the possible exception of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe!!). Margaret Thatcher's Government which I personally loathed with a passion unmatched by anyone before or since, did brilliant undogmatic work in controlling the Aids epidemic, the effects of which can still be seen today in the relatively low infection rates found in this country. New Labour has guided this country to the longest period of uninterrupted growth in its history, a period in which every other major industrialised country has had a recession. And Greenwich Council..................Well to get to the point, I resolved to write about what the Council does well.

So this got me thinking, I need to write about things I have some experience of, being that I do not have children, am fortunate enough to be working and earning enough not to need benefits, and I buy books rather than borrow them! This gets me down to I walk and drive round the borough and I get my bins emptied. About the same time as I was musing away to myself I was getting ready to do the ironing while watching a few episodes of 24 on DVD.

So I turned on the TV and caught most of

Tonight with Trevor McDonald

It was rubbish, sorry it was about rubbish, and was actually rather good. This got me thinking that my experience of the council waste collection service is actually 1st class.

I have lived her for 20+ years and to my recollection they have never missed a collection. If I have more rubbish than can be fitted in the bin they have always taken it all away without complaint. They have never asked for money at Christmas. They still collect general refuse weekly, despite having introduced 2 weekly recycling collections. The recycling is really easy as it all goes in one bin so no one has an excuse not to do it.

When I see programmes like 'Tonight' and hear of experiences of people living in other Boroughs like Croydon (where the Refuse service sounds like it is run by the Gestapo, but with the efficiency of a failed state, and the recycling system seem to have been thought up by the people who write the instruction leaflets for cheap electrical goods).

I say thank you Greenwich Council for a Rolls Royce service and long may it continue.

GRAFFITI

Graffiti seems to be on the up at the moment, took this pic this morning while taking Chelsea and Charlton for their morning constitutional. Its the Garages at the back of Heavitree Road, by the Tennis Courts.



I know that PCEG perform sterling efforts in painting over these 'tags', (think that is the correct term), but the problem currently seems to be overwhelming. However overstretched the council claim to be I really think they should be more on top of the problem. Especially in this instance, as it is their garages which are the eyesore!! As far as I can tell only one is actually in use, and the rest are in an advanced state of disrepair.

I am fed up with the council on the one hand saying, and I quote 'Greenwich has this year set one of the lowest Council Tax increases in London' and on the other saying they have no money to do anything. Either they should spend my money more efficiently, or for god's sake put up the council tax, so they have got the money to improve the area and deal with problems like Graffiti. Just letting things slide, only encourages the vandals. What's the point of a low council tax if the place is going to rack and ruin?

I have got one suggestion, how about pulling down the garages an replacing them with a Cafe on the Common!!

Now if I was to leave it there, someone (probably from PCEG) would get back to say that this is a community problem and what am I doing about it, and they would have a valid point. So I have resolved to pull my finger out and have already downloaded my application form to join PCEG and will send it off today. If you want to do the same then you can find the form at the end of their most recent newsletter, just click here

PCEG Newsletter

NEWSFLASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The power of the internet (perhaps), only 2 working days after my post, (and only 1 day after writing nice things about the council), and lo and behold shabby, decrepit, but Graffiti FREE garages, so well done to GC and Cleansweep, who were hard at work at 8.30 this morning. Am just waiting for PCEG to give me my tin of paint!! To help keep them this way.

Chelsea loves the Common almost as much as she loves food!!!

While waiting for my food to arrive at the fabulous Capital Noodle Bar in Plumstead Common Road. I was flicking through one of the thoughtfully provided newspapers and came across this article. You may wonder what relevance this has to The good people of Plumstead. Well not a huge amount unless you have boys who want a decent choice of non bigoted secondary schools to go to.

By MICHAEL LEA
Political Correspondent
April 07, 2007

Lesbian teacher's £20k payout

A LESBIAN teacher won £20,000 compensation after being told she couldn’t have PATERNITY leave.

But another woman teacher who was RAPED by a 12-year-old pupil received just £11,000.

The cases emerged yesterday as it was revealed that payouts to teachers hit £20million last year.

Awards were made for reasons ranging from violent attacks at school to accidents and unfair dismissal.

The lesbian teacher wanted time off to help her partner give birth — but this was refused by the Roman Catholic school where she worked.

It said her lifestyle was “unacceptable” and warned she would be dismissed if she did not find another job immediately.

The unnamed teacher quit, but the National Union of Teachers took up her case.

The NUT won her £20,000 for breach of sexual orientation, paternity and adoption leave regulations.

That award was almost DOUBLE the compensation given to a teacher after a boy at her school raped her, then escaped in her car.

Graham Clayton, senior lawyer at the NUT, said payouts in criminal cases were not always satisfactory.

He added: “In some cases these do not always produce the kind of justice we think is justified.”

Tories branded the difference in payouts “perverse”. MP Philip Davies said: “Political correctness has taken over.

“We have got ourselves into an offensive situation when it is deemed twice as serious for a lesbian to be denied some time off as it for a teacher to suffer the physical and mental horror of rape.”

Well lets get one thing out of the way first of all, I think it is disgraceful that the poor woman who was raped and had her car stolen only got £11,000 compensation. This is the fault of the way in which Criminal injuries compensation is calculated. The issue of the apalling treatment of a teacher by a Roman Catholic school is a wholly separate issue, and is the one which has implications for the good people of Plumstead. Unfortunatly the Sun tried to link two separate issues in order to ilicit a homophobic response. It is sad that a Tory MP fell for this and just goes to show that the 'nasty party' is alive and well, despite David Cameron's attempts to drag the Conservative Party kicking and screaming into the 20th Century. (alas getting them into the 21st is probably beyond him).

What the rent a quote Tory hack did was to trivialise what had happened to the lady in question, she was not just 'denied some time off'. She was denied equal treatment, to which she is entitled to under the law, and was threatenen with the loss of her career, not because there was anything wrong with her teaching, but because the narrow minded biggoted attitude of her employer. I think the school was lucky to get away with only having to pay £20,000 compensation.

If this incidence of blatent discrimination and Homophobia were an isolated incident it would not be that much of an issue, however the reason why the school thought it was acceptable to behave the way it did is because it is a Catholic school. The advice of the Catholic Church is that homophobic bullying should not be mentioned in a schools anti-bullying policy. So I checked our local Catholic school's website,

St Pauls Academy

and sure enough, there is a mention of racism ('racist remarks'), but a big fat silence on homophobia. Why does this matter? Because in 2004 the Council forced the run down and eventually the closure of Abbey Wood School, so they could give the site to an expanded Catholic school. This means that if you have sons going to secondary school and you want them to get a education free from discrimination and biggotry, they can't go to Eaglesfield, because it has closed, Woolwich Polytechnic School has moved to Thamesmead and Abbey Wood School is closed to new admissions.

Quite why Greenwich Council thinks it acceptable to impose biggoted and medieval attitudes on local children is quite beyond me. It is about time that so called faith schools were given the boot and consigned to the dustbin of history where they belong.