Forum Topic

Ealing Council really MUST get to grips with the street cleansing, it's no point litter picking here and there when there is just as much rubbish after they have finished.Acton High Street pavements - especially near McDonalds is an absolute disgrace. One more reason to shop elsewhere!As mentioned these forums are covering all the topics regarding the state of Acton and Ealing but nothing seems to be happening to sort things out.It is now more time consuming to report such matters to Ealing Council whereas before we Streetwatchers acted as the eyes and ears for this Council but now instead of a designated email address where one email would suffice we are now expected to spend ages reporting each item separately, and complete 6 pages for every one. It seems to me as though the Council would rather NOT hear about flytipping, graffiti, missed collections and so on - but perhaps someone from Ealing Council would like to come on here and reassure me and others that this is not the case.Any antisocial behaviour simply attracts MORE antisocial behaviour, once someone throws out an old mattress in the street before you know it others have added their rubbish on top.Please can someone at Ealing Council explain when we can expect our streets to be swept properly and how often?  I hope the situation doesn't get any worse before it gets better!  Will it ever get better???This place looks more like a third world country instead our Queen of the Suburbs. Very sad.

Jean F Fernandez ● 3681d

Another week has gone by and still no cleaning of the streets around my way. I wrote this letter to councillors and got a response which you can see below but no action has been taken. I have followed up asking what they talked about on Monday. Hi all, Thanks for sorting out our recycling bin it has come we are happy about this. Once again i am going to complain about the state of the streets in acton particularly berrymead gardens. There is huge amount of rubbish at the end of the street (flytipping, fridge, black bags, cans, filth) and in the gutters. The bottom of the street always has rubbish being flytipped there, why not put some sort of monitoring in place to stop it? There are always people drinking down there and leaving cans all over the street, why not try and stop that also? Out of the front of the Acton United Social Club there are thousands of cigarette butts and more cans. I saw my neighbour picking up garbage at the top end of the street this morning he's had enough of no-one coming around to clean the streets. He had a bag full of rubbish and that was just for his side and the first say 5 houses. Honestly Acton is filthy. I am not sure if you are monitoring the forums but everyone is complaining about it. It's like the 3rd world. We live in London, England not Somalia.We pay council tax but i am honestly not sure what it is used for, street cleaning is the basics, we shouldn't have to complain about this. Access roads like Berrymead need to be cleaned more than once a week. I have heard through the forums you are now doing 3 week cleans to save money? What? This is insanity? Why would you do this? Is it the same in Ealing proper or just Acton cause we get a second rate service? Also no one can complain about this, there are no responses through the normal channels, no one to talk to. So i have to resort to emailing you. Everyone is talking about this on the forums too. So team what are we going to do to sort this out? It's a health hazard, it looks terrible and everyones getting really angry about it. You need to start paying attention and start fixing this basic service that every other borough in London seems to handle fairly effectively. I look forward to your reply. Thanks, Nathan----Hi Nathan,Glad to hear your bin's arrived. The new system saw a huge increase in the amount being recycled in the first month so thank you for your patience.We have a meeting with officers on Monday to discuss flytipping and street cleansing, so we'll certainly raise Berrymead Gardens as an area they need to focus on more. I'll also ask that Kingdom Security, one of our contractors, be tasked with patrolling the area - they have the power to issue on-the-spot fines for littering, and can also now issue £400 fines for flytipping.  I hope that helps for now.All the best,Josh

Nathan Macrides ● 3681d

I agree wholeheartedly with you Malcolm - we need to make a fuss with the council and show neighbours by example when rubbish basics are being flouted. I've explained the new system to a few neighbours who didn't get or didn't read the info packs about it. But I've breached my pro-activity threshold with this latest chaos. Our black bin has been festering uncollected since June 15th. We left it in our usual spot, as near to our front gate as possible, only to have the bin men leave it. A neighbour saw them look inside and wander away. I had a look and the contents were all as per the rules - bagged rubbish. I duly reported a missed collection online but nothing happened. A couple of days later, I filled out another form. Nothing happened. I then phoned and was told by a chirpy, apologetic human that the online reporting system didn't seen to be working- "you're kidding" - and the council was having problems with the new contractors based in Liverpool and and and... the rubbish would certainly be gone within 24 hours. Well, you bet, nothing happened.  It's June 23rd. No collection since June 15th. Two scheduled slots missed. We heaved our now-heaving bin into the street a few days ago out of desperation with a note on it imploring them to empty it. I've written to Rupa twice and my daily regime now features a 15-minute call to the council. Brush teeth, call council. A council man with a clipboard came round a few days ago, a "Recycling Monitor", took some notes, suggested we get two smaller bins - "huh?" - and assured that the big one now on the pavement would definitely be emptied within 24 hours. You guessed it, t's still there, heavy but the lid easy closes. It blocks the pavement and adds to the ugly assortment of discarded household goods, black bags full of beer cans, piles of bedding in the nooks of the old bingo hall and piles of dog poo. Burlington Gardens is a mix of privately-owned flats, A2 Dominion housing association tenants and the tenants of private landlords. Handsome terraced houses. Lack of basic care and attention has long been a problem in some of the tenanted houses but this degree of filth is unprecedented. And council ineptitude is mostly to blame.

Susan Flory ● 3699d