komadori’s green corner

You might think that people from an organisation with its offices right next to the railway station would prefer to get away from the railway for an ‘away day’. Apparently not. With fifty four staff on the away day, that’s roughly a £5000 public sector donation to the Swindon & Cricklade Railway. It’s almost worth it, just to see the Adver, for once, not referring to people that work at the Research Council’s Swindon offices as ‘boffins’.

In all the arguments over whether central Swindon should or should not have wheelie bins, one issue seems to have been consistently overlooked. As seen again in the council’s response to the latest protests in the Broadgreen area, the only concern seems to be whether wheelie bins can be fitted into the space in front of the houses. They do not seem to be thinking about how much slower the collections in central Swindon might become with wheelie bins.

At the moment, the dustmen can quickly and easily hoist a black bag straight over my front wall, without coming in through the gate. It takes no more than a couple of seconds. Come November they’ll have to come through my (sprung) gate, manœuvre the bin out through the gate (which by now will have closed), between the parked cars to the dustcart. Then repeat the action in reverse once the bin is empty. In the more spacious suburbs, where the manœuvring will be much easier, this might be quite quick. In the Victorian terraces it will not. I get the impression that nobody has thought at all about how much more this will cost in time and hence money.

Earlier this summer, Westcott Place was re-surfaced. When a special high-visibility, high-grip road surface was aded at the site of the school crossing patrol near the entrance to Robert le Kyng School, I thought it might indicate that there was to be an upgrade to a proper pedestrian crossing, but that hasn’t happened. The re-surfacing work was completed, just in time for Westcott Place to serve as a diversionary route during the works on Kingshill. School term started. The crossing patrol did not resume. So now there are road markings to maybe hint that traffic should slow and give way and pavement marking to encourage children to cross here, but nothing to ensure that either actually happen.

I arrived home today to find my new wheelie bin waiting for me. Now I’m content enough with the small wheelie bin that, as I requested, I have received. It’s a little difficult to manœuvre around the narrow space between my gate and the front of my house (how I would have managed with a full size bin I’m not sure), but apart from that it’s fine. What annoys me is the nonsense contained in the leaflet that came with it.

Where and when should my bin be left for collection?
Your wheelie bin should be put at a point on your own property that is nearest the public highway,

That’ll be right in by my front door then.

where it is visible and accessible to to the collection crews.

As the bin is about twice the height of my front wall, it should be pretty difficult to miss, though given the record so far of the bin-men emptying my orange recycling boxes, I may need to train it to do a song and dance routine to get them to notice it. As to being accessible, at the moment the binmen hoick a black bag out of my dustbin ove the brick wall, without coming through the gate. WIth the wheelie bin, it is too deep for them to reach in and it will be difficult for them to manœuvre out of my gate.

Why change to a wheelie bin?
It reduces the amount of rubbish that is sent to costly and environmentally-damaging landfill by encouraging recycling

What? Just where did that demonstrable bit of nonsense come from? A wheelie bin does not of itself have any impact on the level of recycling, as anyone who lived (as I did) in a city where wheelie bins were introduced over eighteen years ago, way before doorstep recycling was introduced, would know. In fact, as the standard size wheelie bin is about four times the size of an old fashioned dustbin, if anything it could be said to encourage the throw-away society. By Mr Wren’s own admission, the biggest impact on the level of recycling in Swindon has been the introduction of separate doorstep collection of plastic bottles. The main influences on the level of recycling are making recycling easier by providing separate doorstep collection, and restricting the amount of ‘non-recyclable’ waste that the council will collect. The means by which that ‘non-recyclable’ waste is collected (be it by wheelie bin or for the anointed few by blue bag) is an irrelevance. It is bad enough that the council have foisted this change upon the residents of central Swindon with a sham consultation: it is an insult to the intelligence of the Swindon electorate that councillors and council officers continue to attempt to confuse the two issues of increasing recycling and the method of waste collection.

Earlier this evening, I took a few moments to vote in the council’s Pride of Place poll for people to chose their favourite tourist attraction in Swindon. I was only the sixth person to do so. However, as a government idea to encourage people to connect with their council it seems rather trivial. If the government really want people to connect with their council they should consider giving back to local councils the many powers they have transferred to ministers for the last ten years.

From the latest comments from Mr Wren, it would seem that the most significant factor in increasing the level of recycling in Swindon is nothing to do with the frequency with which ‘non-recyclable’ rubbish is collected, nor is it related to the introduction of wheelie bins. What matters is the council making it easy to recycle what wasn’t recycled before.

Since introducing the new plastic bottle recycling scheme we have experienced a surge in the amount of waste being recycled rather than just sent to landfill.

Lets hope that the success of this ‘carrot’ influences future policy in this area, so that their is rather less emphasis on the ‘stick’. It’s nice too to see that Mr Montaut has finally finally caught-up on the primary issue of concern to his electorate in relation to the new waste collections.

However, the biggest concern is the blanket view taken over which residents will be required to have wheelie bins.

I see that wheelie bins have even arrived in the back-alleys of the railway village now.

I have previously commented on others’ experiences of the student-run restaurant at Swindon College. Last Thursday I sampled their offerings for myself. Whoever devised the menu clearly had an obsession with orange. That apart, the chicken and bacon salad starter with chive dressing was a succulent start. The dressing in particular was a pleasant change from the vinegar or oil based dressings in which salads are often drowned. The main course of gammon steak was good but nothing exceptional. The dessert of apple and ginger crumble in caramel cream was a delight, with just the merest hint of ginger, the only disappointment being a less than generous covering of caramel cream. These three dishes were rounded off with a pot of tea.

At just £5 for a midday meal, the restaurant appears popular with the local pensioners. I recommend not waiting quite so long.

The assistant chief constable of Wiltshire Police seems to think that the state of local policing is good.

The present position is a good news story for Wiltshire which remains not just a beautiful County but one of the very safest places in which to live and work, with a police service that continues to improve and, in a number of areas is viewed as being at the cutting edge of modern policing.

Apparently ‘cutting edge’ means being incapable enforcing a dispersal order, and not having adequate back-up support for police-on-the-cheap (a.k.a. PCSOs). Let us hope it never descends to less than cutting edge. To quote the first recommendation of the report on Wiltshire Police by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary.

That the force continues to build capability among its Neighbourhood Policing teams, including a clear vision of how the teams can ensure that their work – while maintaining focus on neighbourhood priorities – is closely integrated with the force strategy for the reduction and detection of volume crime.

The force clearly has a long way yet to go.

At last we have a price tag for Mr Bluh’s wish to run a canal along Westcott Place and Faringdon Road into Swindon town centre. It’s not a cheap price tag. £50M according to Swindon Borough Council’s consultants, Halcrow. I wouldn’t disagree with Mr Bluh’s opinion that a waterway within the town centre would be a great improvement to the attractiveness of the town. But at that price, and bearing in mind that the chosen route, unlike the original route of the canal, will run near to the town centre rather than right through the heart of the town centre, some serious thought is required. Swindon’s main attraction for tourists is well known, even amongst locals, to be no more than that there are many very interesting places nearby (the Cotswolds, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Avebury, Marlborough, the Kennet and Avon Canal…). Of itself, another canal will not change that.

To be worth the price and inconvenience, we need a benefit better than those identified so far.

As has been reported both locally and nationally, a survey for Year of Food and Farming in support of the just finished British Food Fortnight has shown that many children do not know where traditional British foods such as pasties, haggis and cheddar cheese originate from. Why would they? Shop in Sainsbury’s and if you read the labels you’ll see cheddar that comes from Canada or Devon and pasties that come from Wales. Until recently protected by law, Melton Mowbray Pork Pies could come from Wiltshire or a similarly named location in Yorkshire.

At least I now know why, for the last two weeks, on the day they normally serve pasta, my works canteen has served ‘prize winning local sausages on a bed of creamed florentine potatoes’. It was their grudging nod to British Food Fortnight and bangers and mash.