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Will we get a rebate?

10:17am Thursday 21st January 2010


urpbloke, sthelens says...

I agree with michele finnigans letter in the star regarding council services in particular the non collection of refuse and recycling materials and the insufficient gritting of roads of all types in st helens.

but to be fair having watched the main news on tv it would seem all councils in the uk are using the same excuse.the news also shows other countrys providing the same services in worse conditions.

china for example mobilise masses of people with spades and grit to keep services going while we the british take to our setees suppin hot tea and watching telly till it passes.

maybe the council will give us a rebate this year for those services they have not provided.


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kirsty21, st helens says...
11:10am Wed 27 Jan 10

have your bins now been emptied? black boxes and red bags emptied? did the extra rubbish for a week or two cause you major problems? infested your garden with rats? I dont understand why people are gettin so angry and serious about this, and as for the gritting i for one would not want the council to buy 5 extra gritting lorries to have just incase we get another big snow fall in the next decade, cos it would be stupid, i think thedy coped quite well, and even collected out bins when the street was still covered in snow, instead of just sayin its too dangerous they plodded along and were still workin into the evening from what i saw,

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Star_reader, St Helens says...
5:58pm Wed 27 Jan 10

No they haven't been emptied, and removing the refuse once in a five week period is not what we have paid for, but lucky you Kirsty yours obviously have, do you live on a main road or bus route?

All the reasonable residents of St Helens are asking is what have the council learnt from this period of bad weather, and what can they put in place to better serve us through another, when it inevitably arrives.

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kirsty21, st helens says...
10:17am Fri 29 Jan 10

no i dont live on a bus route or main road, and neither do my family who live in the area and all of their bins were emptied,
what they can do better is buy more gritters and stock pile some grit but as i said it would be stupid to do this as we may not get snow like we did for another ten years,

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Star_reader, St Helens says...
10:46am Fri 29 Jan 10

Kirsty You seem to think throwing money at a problem and buying more grit etc is the only answer. (And lets be clear we paid for the grit, not the council. So if the people of St Helens want a better service the council should respind, simple fact).

However I fear you've missed the point so I'll clarify.
Throwing cash at a problem, merely hides it, better planning and contingency processes are needed.

Over to you Town Hall...

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kirsty21, st helens says...
4:58pm Fri 29 Jan 10

no i havent missed the point, what other contingency could they have? it was dangerous for the wagons to go down the street, no amount of planning would change that, everyone ran out of grit so nothing could change that, if there isnt enough salt out there
i think too many people are blaming the council for not planning for the snow, something they couldnt control,
and ill clarify that the only things they could do to clear the snow was to grit or plow, which to be better meant buying more,
the only other thing that could be done would be everybody shovelling the road outside their house then the side streets would be clear and the wagons would have gotten down the streets, but when i was shovelling my drive, path and road I didnt see anyone else rushing out to shovel, so maybe thats itm next time people should shovel for themselves instead of sitting about having a 'snow day'

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Star_reader, St Helens says...
12:28pm Sat 30 Jan 10

You have clearly missed my point you're focusing on the grit again.

So off the top of my head a couple of different planning/contingency options to ensure resident satisfaction is protected should we find ourselves in the position we recently have again.

*The council could update us via text (not everyone has internet access to check their website) or email when they know that the refuse won't be collected, and then update us when they expect it to be done. Very simple to do and protects the satisfaction levels a customer has with a supplier. (I know as I work in IT for a Corporate Technology business).

* Could they have bin lorries located at local sites around the borough so that residents could if they felt the urge take their rubbish to themselves as they inevitably need to stock up on provisions.

*Should they be offering free black rubbish sacks to residents so that they can use these to stockpile their rubbish in until the council are able to collect it safely again.

I could go on, but I think this illustrates my point and gets us away from the bin lorries and buy more rock salt.

In the road where I live we also cleared our paths and footpaths, and those of our elderly residents, no "snow day" for us.

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kirsty21, st helens says...
3:05pm Mon 1 Feb 10

so u want them to throw money at the problem, on sending thousands of text messages, but those who dont have mobiles how do we tell them? but that wouldnt change the fact that the bins were not emptied,
you want them to throw money by giving us all bin bags, when hopefully you use binbags anyway so why should they give free bags out?
as for leaving bin lorries in places that is just a waste of time and money, plus people would just moan about having to move their own rubbish,
and if you wanted to move your own rubbish the town has various tips where you could have taken your bags,
so you continually go on at me about thinking bout throwin money at the problem but your ideas all involve money, and wouldnt actually change the fact that the bins could not be emptied, at least mine would have got the bins emptied

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Star_reader, St Helens says...
3:26pm Mon 1 Feb 10

Kirsty,

I suggest you ask the council how much it costs to run its contact centre people sat at phones dealing dealing with 1000's of calls (I'm sure they don't do it for nothing) and then measure it against a corporate text account, a corp text acc costs in the region of 0.02p per message I know which works out the cheaper.

Bin lorries at local drop off points, how is that a waste of money, we're already PAYING the bin men?
And as for providing black bin bags, not everyone does it, have you noticed the companies that go round the bin lorries jet washing bins out.

You're clinging onto the argument that nothing can be done better, thank the lord you have nothing to do with our council.

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kirsty21, st helens says...
9:38am Wed 3 Feb 10

ill start off by saying - how dare you,
no im basically saying nothivng can be done without throwing money at it, which you showed considering all your ideas would cost, and yeah we are paying the bin men, but we were also paying the council workers who cleared the snow,
and as for the bin bags people who dont use them, then its their own fault if they have rubbish everywhere, common sense would tell you to use bin bags.
and yes i have seen the bin cleaning vans, i use them, but not because i dont use bin bags, jus cos its a bin and it gets dirty.
and i dont care how much a text costs, it costs and that is all that matters to prove my point that money has to be spent no matter what, and you never answered my question - how do we tell the people without mobiles?
I think people need to have a little common sense, and a little compassion, I dont want to drag the bin men out in freezing cold dangerous weather, just so that i dont have to put a bin bag in the garden for a week, because its stupid and petty, people need to grow up, get a life and get some perspective, there are worse more important things going on in our lives!

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Star_reader, St Helens says...
10:07am Wed 3 Feb 10

I'll dare whatever I want. You're so closed minded, I'm banging my head against the wall. So after this no more comments, or checking back to see what you've come up with next, all I said at the start was I hoped that the council would review their processes and make any changes they could, you obviously don't want anyone to look at improving any service.

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kirsty21, st helens says...
1:43pm Wed 3 Feb 10

no im not closed minded, i made my point and you basically told me i was stupid, and then you proved my point,
if they can improve it then i hope they do, but people are taking a bit of snow every ten years way too seriously which is just shown by the fact that people are still moanin about it now

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