26 replies to this topic

[catbazza]

Good news, after a long time, due to the intervention of Philip Davies MP the local residents are now allowed to use Ellar Gyhll Refuse Centre, the staff at the refuse centre will no longer turn away people from Burley & Menston wishing to use it.. THREE CHEERS.

[Orange]

That's great but I will still be a bit wary about using it - it is quite embarrassing when you get turned away!

[Mark D]

Fantastic news - thanks for all involved! A victory for common sense at last

[Davenport]

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[catbazza]

LOok on Yokals, full details by Ken Kreek.

[Davenport]

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[catbazza]

http://www.yocals.co.uk/

You have to register to enter.

Don't know if I am committing an offence by quoting another another person,but here goes.

Victory at the tip

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It seems that following the intervention of Philip Davies MP, whose constituency covers Menston and Burley, Leeds City Council have relented under pressure and will not turn away any tip users from other parts of the area.

Common sense has finally prevailed. Quite why our councillors did not get this sorted months ago is beyond me, maybe the "illegal" tip users were not electors.

[Davenport]

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[bikerbabe]

Davenport said:

Catbazza - How do you know that?
I havent seen it reported anywhere and Ive asked a few other people who dont seem to know anything about it.

Are you Sure?

I dont want to be

It was in the T&A the other day, Thursday I think?

[Matt]

catbazza said:

Edited - Quote from external site (not catbazza!)

It seems that following the intervention of Philip Davies MP, whose constituency covers Menston and Burley, Leeds City Council have relented under pressure and will not turn away any tip users from other parts of the area.

Common sense has finally prevailed. Quite why our councillors did not get this sorted months ago is beyond me, maybe the "illegal" tip users were not electors.

Councillors have been working on this for a long time, and still are. We just don't get our work in the press quite as easily.

Matt

[Wharfedale]

Matt Palmer said:

Councillors have been working on this for a long time, and still are.

I just don’t get this. I can understand the initial thoughts of Leeds Council who realised that the tip was being used by those of us who live in Bradford but surely any meeting between Bradford and Leeds would have gone along the following path.

Leeds: Hey, you guys are using our tip; a tip paid for by Leeds residents. We really can’t have that happening.

Bradford: Why not, it’s better than wasting more fuel and driving further than needs be, or fly tipping.

Leeds: Yea, good point, we’ll take down the ‘Leeds residents only’ sign. Sorry about that, we must look rather foolish.

Bradford: No worries, at least this hasn’t dragged on for months.

Leeds: Yea, imagine how stupid we would all look then.

Bradford: I know! People already have little faith in local or national government so it would be crazy to confirm their suspicions and actually act like a set of jack asses over something that benefits the very people we are hear to serve.

Leeds: We should all hug.

Bradford: Yes… yes we should.

[Matt]

Wharfedale said:

I just don’t get this. I can understand the initial thoughts of Leeds Council who realised that the tip was being used by those of us who live in Bradford but surely any meeting between Bradford and Leeds would have gone along the following path.

Leeds: Hey, you guys are using our tip; a tip paid for by Leeds residents. We really can’t have that happening.

Bradford: Why not, it’s better than wasting more fuel and driving further than needs be, or fly tipping.

Leeds: Yea, good point, we’ll take down the ‘Leeds residents only’ sign. Sorry about that, we must look rather foolish.

Bradford: No worries, at least this hasn’t dragged on for months.

Leeds: Yea, imagine how stupid we would all look then.

Bradford: I know! People already have little faith in local or national government so it would be crazy to confirm their suspicions and actually act like a set of jack asses over something that benefits the very people we are hear to serve.

Leeds: We should all hug.

Bradford: Yes… yes we should.

That's the same script I wanted to write - the problem was here:

Quote

Leeds: Yea, good point, we’ll take down the ‘Leeds residents only’ sign. Sorry about that, we must look rather foolish.

The cost of disposing of rubbish has gone up a lot because of landfill tax, which councils have to pay. Landfill tax has the admirable result making in financially viable for councils to invest in alternatives to landfill, but also means that councils have to pay a lot of money to dispose of other people's waste - we don't pay Leeds council tax, but we use their service. You'd think they'd say 'oh well, there are lots of tips on municipal boundaries, and it will work itself out overall'. Unfortunately, Leeds decided to close their borders - and they do have the right to do it if they wish. It doesn't help with Ellar Ghyll, but I'm pleased to say that Bradford doesn't do anything that daft.

It would be nice to think this is over, but it's not. I extracted a similar promise about 2 years ago as I recall... yet here we are again, and the sign is still there. Behind all this, there is even talk of permit schemes and so on (i.e. chopping down more trees as great expense in order to stop people using tips on boundaries). It's mad, because we all know it's silly to make people drive miles to go to the tip when there is one which is for some people affected, literally the other side of the road.

Having said that, the sensible outcome seems to be some sort of understanding that we can all use each other's tips, with some financial flows to compensate where required. That, however, affects every boundary of every council in the country, and will take time (unless the government legislates, which it should, but won't).

Full marks to Philip, whose intervention clearly made a difference. However, we have to keep our eyes open, and the pressure on!

Matt

[Wharfedale]

Matt, many thanks for the response.

It would appear to me that the logical thought process takes us to the conclusion that local government is too pre occupied with bean counting and bureaucracy to deliver the services that it is charged with delivering.

If Leeds and Bradford are going to start invoicing each other for the use of tips then clearly things have gone badly wrong, and let’s be honest; how many people from Bradford actually use the Leeds tips?

Again, I come back to one thing – joined up government… Is it time that we thought about a county wide council rather than five councils within one county?

[Mark D]

Won't this quickly deteriorate into a centralisation/de-centralisation debate?

On one extreme we voted a couple of years ago to have our own village parish council which was separated from Ilkley council, on the other extreme we have Scottish and Welsh devolution. I'm sure the entire spectrum of view is represented by people on this forum and I'll not throw my own in, other to say that I'm sure none are perfect solutions where all "common-sense" problems are avoided.

Mark

[Davenport]

[quote name="catbazza"]http://www.yocals.co.uk/

quote]

Now Ive registered

Not sure how to get the quote thing to work

[catbazza]

Hi Davenport,
All you need to do to 'Quote', is to right click & drag across the words you wish to quote to highlight them, then click quote which will bring up the reply box with the words ect you wish to quote entered ready for you to type your message.
Does this answer your question.

[Wharfedale]

It would appear that not only has this issue not been resolved but they are now telling Bradford residents that they can no longer use the tip.

I spoke to my neighbour this morning; he was challenged when he began tipping garden waste over the weekend which was carried in the Bradford Council garden waste bags. He told them that he understood the issue had been resolved but they said it hadn’t and he was not to use the tip again.

What a ridiculous situation.

[catbazza]

Matt, have you any comment regarding the last post by Wharfedale, if Wharfedale is correct the messages are not getting through or the person taking the garden waste met a jobsworthy.

It also could boil down to the fact that this person took the Bradford bags to to empty at a Leeds depot when they know that Bradford collects green waste & maybe if he had taken it in black bags nothing would have been said.

[Matt]

I haven't had any recent reports of people being refused other than this one. If anyone is refused access / challenged, please contact Philip (daviesp@parliament.uk) and copy me in (matt.palmer@bradford.gov.uk). However, it needs to be the person who has had the problem for us to follow it up effectively.

Matt

[Wharfedale]

Matt. Thanks for your comments. I’ll invite my neighbour to send the email tomorrow.