Madam, Your reported interview with Councillor John Jarvis regarding the new household waste collection system smacks of the most egregious special pleading. The figures do not show 'just how much people in the county want to recycle! how can it when they have been given no choice!
We are not at all surprised the phone lines have been exceptionally busy if the shambles in our area is repeated elsewhere.
Last week our refuse should have been collected on Tuesday and the green recycle bin emptied on the same day. Neither happened and so we were forced to bring everything in to avoid attracting rodents.
Despite assurances on the phone that the refuse would be collected and the bin emptied by 6pm on Wednesday, nothing happened and we were again forced to bring the rubbish in. Despite further phone calls nothing happened on Thursday and it was only on Friday, November 13th that our bins were finally emptied.
Our household black rubbish sacks should should have been collected November 17th, but, yet again, no collection was made and we had to bring the sacks in again.
The so-called 'helpline' assured us that a collection would be made today but, as I write this letter, nothing has been done and this is despite getting up and out at an unusually early hour to put the sacks out before 6.30am.
We do not know what kind of hours Councillor Jarvis keeps but requiring elderly residents in Ross to get up and put sacks out. before 6.30am is absolutely ridiculous. Putting sacks containing food out the previous evening is simply encouraging rodent infestation.
The situation is exacerbated by the Council manning its phone lines with staff who are not authorised to make decisions. Senior managers are, apparently, not available to talk to the public. Telephone staff refuse to identify themselves by giving a surname even though they demand such details from us.
This makes it almost impossible to construct a logical account of a sequence of events. Why are we not permitted to know the names of council staff who arc paid by us and who are supposed to be serving us?
Lastly, Councillor Jarvis may well be a committee member of the Council but he is not, I think, in the present Labour government. The only Cabinet (definite article) in England is in Downing Street.
Nick Hawthorn, Ross