Birmingham City Council to pay out to resident who hired skip
The resident claimed the council "repeatedly failed" to collect communal waste containers. The watchdog said it caused "difficulties" for the woman, who was referred to as Mrs X.Mr and Mrs X reported a number of missed collections last summer, four in September and four in October.She made a formal complaint in October and a skip was hired in an attempt to clear some waste.
'Need to intervene'
The ombudsman said the council's response to the complaint apologised for "poor level of service" and that the authority stated crews were given "additional reminders".But issues reportedly continued towards the end of 2024.The watchdog said the council stated it was unable to comment on what "caused the missed collections as the driver and crew are involved in the industrial action", but "it again suggests the later start times introduced in 2024 are a potential cause".The report stated a number of missed collections were eventually "closed", meaning the council completed them later. Addressing missed collections earlier this year, cabinet member for environment Majid Mahmood said: "We don't want to see a single complaint coming through to customer services because of non-collection."No resident should have to go and pay for their own skip. It's a service that we have to by law provide to residents."If there's specific issues... that's something that we need to intervene with."He added in January that new technology would make a positive difference and the system was being reviewed around tower blocks and maisonettes.Mahmood has said changes to the city's waste service will provide people "with a better waste collection service" in line with other councils.
This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.
Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
13 minutes ago
- BBC News
Filter 'temporary fix' to Whitehaven Harbour's orange water
A new filtering system has provided a temporary solution to a years-long problem of a harbour's water turning orange, bosses have have identified iron ochre getting into Whitehaven's Queens Dock in Cumbria through a culvert draining water from the Bransty railway tunnel, resulting in a discolouration to the harbour. Whitehaven Harbour Commissioners (WHC) said the "amazing" transformation to the water was "most likely" the result of a new filter installed by Network Rail in the tunnel, but it was "not yet a permanent fix".Network Rail said the system was temporary while "essential" work was undertaken, but the firm would play its part in seeking a long-term solution. Deanne Shallcross, chief executive of WHC, said the view of the Queen's Dock with clear water was "amazing".She said: "We appreciate this sudden change is most likely a temporary effect of the work that Network Rail are doing in Bransty Tunnel and not yet a permanent fix, but it's great to see the water can indeed return to its former glory relatively quickly when solutions are in place."She said she would "love" for the filtration equipment to remain but it was currently only funded "under temporary permissions", while Network Rail carried out work on the tunnel. WHC and other members of the harbour water task force would "continue to work hard on securing funding and confirming a permanent solution", Ms Shallcross and Workington MP Josh MacAlister, who is one of those working to fix the problem, posted WHC's picture of the harbour on social media with the caption: "Notice anything? It's not orange." He previously described the situation as "mind-bogglingly frustrating" after a number of multi-agency meetings failed to find a solution to the problem. A Network Rail spokesperson said the "temporary water treatment plant" was in place during "essential work to upgrade the track and drainage" through Bransty tunnel in Whitehaven. They said the filter system was a condition of an environmental licence issued by the Environment Agency and would only operate for the duration of the works due to permit and funding issues."We continue to play our part with other partners involved to work towards a longer-term, affordable solution," the spokesperson said. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
The Guardian
43 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Nick Kent obituary
My friend and former colleague, Nick Kent, who has died aged 72, was a journalist on the Daily Mirror; he later moved into book publishing. With several others he and I launched the fortnightly Greyound Star newspaper in 1984 while we were both still at the Mirror, and by 1988 we had switched to working on it full-time. Soon afterwards the two of us sold our shares in the business to concentrate on another venture, Ringpress, which published books about every kind of pet, from goldfish to parrots. Along with a third director, Julia Barnes, we sold Ringpress in 2002 and Nick decided to retire. Nick was born in Southend, Essex (a circumstance that gave him a lifelong enthusiasm for jellied eels), to Frederick, a civil servant, and Emily (nee Ficken), a seamstress. After the early death of his father, he and his brother, Michael, moved with their mother to the village of Little Cornard, near Sudbury, in Suffolk, where he grew up. He began his journalistic career while at Sudbury grammar school, writing a fishing column for the local paper. Later at Nottingham University he edited the student newspaper and, after gaining a degree in English and American studies he joined the Mirror Group graduate training scheme in 1974. Working on provincial newspapers in the west of England for two years, he switched to London with the weekly tabloid newspaper Reveille in 1976 and then, in 1979, the Daily Mirror as a features subeditor. By 1984 he had become one of the youngest chief subeditors in the Daily Mirror's history, on the features desk; I was chief news subeditor on the paper at the same time. He also talked his way into being the Mirror's first wine correspondent, once saying of an offering from the Co-op that 'this wine is best drunk on its own, like your correspondent'. After eventually selling Ringpress, Nick set up home in Cannes, in the south of France, with his first wife, the novelist Deanna Maclaren, whom he had married in 1987. There he discovered a passion for long-distance walking in the mountains above the Côte d'Azur and Liguria. He was also a volunteer driver, enabling people with disabilities to experience the joys of the great outdoors. In 2014 he returned to London and set aside retirement to become managing director of the ailing Peter Owen Publishing, one of the oldest independent producers of fiction. While unable to restore the business to past glories, he kept it afloat until its sale in 2022, when he entered into his second retirement, in Saxmundham, Suffolk. Though living with serious depression for much of his life, Nick had a remarkable ability to embrace new opportunities and interests. He had a passion for golf, wine and enjoying himself. After a divorce from Deanna in 2017, the following year Nick married Antonia Owen, whose father had set up Peter Owen Publishing. She survives him.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Why have I been hoarding 39,674 emails?
Our worst water-wasting habit might not even feel slightly damp: we're now being told to save water by clearing out our inboxes. 'Deleting emails, unbelievably, makes a difference to the amount of water the country uses,' Helen Wakeham, the Environment Agency director of water, told the World at One last week. Hoarding decades' worth of 'Your Amazon order is out for delivery' notifications in datacentres consumes not just energy but water for cooling, and tech companies are building those datacentres in some of the most water-scarce places in the world. Wakeham called an email cull 'something really tangible people might not think of that can make a difference', and I do want to make a difference. I don't use water-gobbling ChatGPT, I comply with the hosepipe ban (albeit swearing at Yorkshire Water as I slop washing-up water into my shoes transporting it to my dying plants) and my showers are so short they're basically pointless. So I checked my inbox: 39,674 emails dating back to 2009. Ugh. And what emails! I sampled a random month in 2017 and it was mostly ads (for everything from Pokémon cards to a Thai cafe where I once used the wifi), plus low battery alerts for my long-defunct FitBit, updates on a rat I sponsored (also, surely, long-defunct), PTA round robins and a rudely rejected pitch. Why did I keep them? Why do any of us? Inertia, and overwhelm; irrational anxiety we might need some of it 'someday'; a misplaced belief there's gold in them thar folders (a gif of a leopard trying Marmite I once sent myself admittedly sounded golden, but the link was dead). Maybe – and I'm mostly trying to convince myself here – we could cast off this thirsty digital comfort blanket. Will HMRC ever demand proof I went to Peterborough in 2011? Could I find that cookie recipe another way (say, ooh, by Googling it)? Is a forensically detailed discussion of Gap boyfriend chinos really vital material for my memoirs? Join me, and let's free ourselves of decades of digital dross. We have nothing to lose but a complete record of every pizza we ordered 2012-2025. Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
