Bin collections over Christmas & New Year [2021/2022]

It looks like bin collections are as normal this week, and delayed by a day for the week after New Year’s.

From the Lewisham website:

Our recycling wasn’t collected today, all of Vancouver Rd

Could be down to covid so lack of teams being able to work together. Seem to personally know a lot of people catching it, or their relatives catching it at the moment.

Thanks for the heads up. Our normal day is Wednesday, but had assumed it would be a day late.
We have a WhatsApp road group, so I will post a message in there!

Lewisham Council website is saying that they are short-staffed because of Covid, and recommending that if your bin wasn’t emptied on due day, to leave bins out for collection.

      Twas Been Day

When out the lawn there arose such a clatter.
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
The large blue truck lights were flashing away.
I couldn’t control myself and bellowed hooray!
The happy, warm driver sat in his cab.
While his team set to work & were absolutely fab!
No bin left un-emptied such a joyous occasion.
Time to celebrate with a morning coffee & raisin.

Happy Bin Day Everyone!

Our bins got emptied today so running on schedule in this part of SE23.

Our black bins were emptied as normal. But the green recycling bin has not been emptied on our normal day.

Both black and green bins were emptied as normal on Sunderland Road this morning.

We have communal bins here, which should have been collected yesterday. The recycling bins were emptied like normal, but the refuse bins were not - which are now overflowing.

Hi,
Hope all your Christmas-related trash got or gets emptied soon.
Unfortunately, Shackleton Close SE23 3YW has been totally neglected for months if not years and not talking just holiday or seasonal refuse/recycling collections.
This is it today but it was pretty much the same on the 21st (just a little less full in the lidded green bin).

RubbishRecycle11920×1440 243 KB

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Yet again I am feeling like a second class citizen here but that is nothing new being within Lewisham Councils remit. On my estate, which is a mix of part owned, leaseholders and Council tenants, there is never, ever regular recycling collections and they even skimp on the regular trash collections. We do not have enoughmrecycling bins, collections or attention, apart from when the ignoramous, idiot people insist on putting wrong items/bags in the wrong bins etc, then, we get block letters threatening to remove recycling bins etc. Oh come on! Do the good residents deserve to be punished because of the bad? Yes, sadly, most people that live here do not care about their neighbours nor their surroundings but do even more residents have to resort to NOT recycling (ie putting everything in regular landfill) binning anything that should be recycled because of the councils pathetic recycling efforts? I care about my local area, my effect on neighbours etc. as my children all grew up here, had friends here, went to school here, have memories here. I actually got involved with and was part of the tenants and residents association for a few years (hmm, that is another story, for another day, perhaps) for this and another estate. I, along with some others, put a lot of time and effort into trying to improve and make better or remedy, living conditions for all of us residents. Suffice to say, the T&RA no longer exists, no-one cares enough. Believe me, I am happy to have a roof over my head, sure, but, especially within this Covid, ultra-trying and hopeless and uncertain time, I (we, indeed!) should not have to put up with this shoddy, abysmal, so-called “service” that is paid for. out of our rents or mortgage and council tax.
I have happily lived in the area for 27 years, raised my family here, pay full rent, full council tax, but wanted to give up my tenancy of this council flat, for another family to benefit, to move out of London to an older persons bungalow near the sea in Kent, via a government scheme so … may as well fill you in a bit more, seeing as I am in full rant mode! …
I took early retirement from the NHS to do that, but the s@I£! hit the fan as my last week at work was the week we locked down in March 2020! I could not apply for a move, could not look for alternative work and had to live off my lump sum payment for 8 months before I (luckily) could work again (as a bank staff member) in Lewisham Hospital. My savings/lump sum ran out before Christmas 2020 due to not being able to work and having to pay full living expenses (same as everyone else. I did not think of applying for benefits as I had this money in the bank, at the time. Now I think I was stupid but, that is another story).
Now, I work as much as I can, live day by day, week to week, hope I can keep it all together, hope I can save money to get out of London one day, am glad I have a Lewisham Homes council property but, sometimes because of outside things, my life gets just that much more unbearable. (along with millions of others, no doubt) So, now I am stuck here until ?
Sorry for the rant but am getting so despondent, life is an existence right now and lots of things make it worse than ever - I have not seen most of my immediate family for 2 years now and am living surrounded by rubbish, building sites (that will create more rubbish, people, parking needs and many other issues and problems) and people in general who do not care about their neighbourhood when the future is terrifying and extremely gloomy. (not just for me).

Happy New Year 2022
surely it HAS to get better?

I have received the below from Lewisham Homes:

We have received an email from Lewisham Council advising us that they have had an unprecedented number of Covid 19 cases within their refuse teams. Lewisham is running on a skeleton team at the moment. This may mean not being able to collect general waste or recycling bins this week.

Lewisham is aware of the areas that have not been collected, will try to catch up as soon as possible and have apologised in advance.

I will do my best to send out a team to skim the bins tomorrow.

I’m sorry to hear you’re having a difficult time. I’ve learned over the years that you have to stay on top of Lewisham Homes to get them to maintain a decent level of service. As a leaseholder who pays a significant service charge, I feel it’s only reasonable to expect that. It’s certainly not the way it should work, but it’s the only thing I’ve found that does.

I’ve managed to get them to fit some bin enclosures and replace all lidless silver bins with blue euro bins. The euro bins are larger whilst the enclosures stop people just throwing anything in and as they have lids it stops litter flying away - reducing wider sweeping/caretaking needs. The silver bins should really only be used for the bin chutes. They have also set-up separate bulk waste points for that service.

I suggest you try to get in touch with the Area Manager to see if they are able to look at putting these in place.

Is it still not possible for you to move to Kent or nearer to your family? Is Covid making this difficult.
You would think Lewisham homes would be very keen to have your flat, same as Lambeth council couldn’t wait to get their hands on her little maisonette when she moved into sheltered housing (I’m going back to early 2000’s) though.
Life is too short isn’t it to be so unhappy. So maybe start looking into moving again, & what benefits you can claim until you get your full pension (if not already eligible).
Take care of yourself.

You have my sympathies. I lived on a council estate for 25 years and it often felt like living in a parallel universe.

The problems you describe are difficult to deal with and I suppose that is why our councillors are absent from this conversation.

Eleswhere you have described how much work you are doing cleaning up. Perhaps you could try claiming for time spent, through the County Court small claims service (online). Take pictures before and after your work, and if you can demonstrate that there is a health or public hygiene matter that needs to be dealt with that the caretaking service is not dealing with, then it may be worth a try charging for your essential work. NB this is not legal advice.

What really needs to happen is close monitoring of what is going on, a team actually watching what people are doing. It should be possible, a couple of environmental health officers for a few days, issuing notices and advising residents, and legal action as necessary. Can’t think how else this can be remedied.

I recently moved to Shackleton Close and have noticed this with the recycle bins too, it’s been weeks and they haven’t taken anything. I’ve tried to contact the council but haven’t heard back. Does seem like they really don’t care. It’s been overflowing for a long time.