Time to talk rubbish and achieve results

Over the past few weeks hundreds of people have complained about Sita, with rubbish left uncollected for days.

Brighton and Hove Council pays Sita £6.7 million to collect rubbish in the borough.

But parts of Brighton have not had domestic rubbish collected for five weeks. Rats have been seen scurrying among uncollected and split black plastic sacks in Woodingdean.

The first things many visitors see when they arrive in Brighton and Hove is roads lined with uncollected black plastic bags, some of them ripped open by seagulls having a field day.

Some cynics say Brighton and Hove is no longer the place to be but the place to flee.

Hundreds of residents have phoned the Sita helpline demanding to know when their rubbish is to be collected. The company had to employ extra staff and extend its call centre opening hours because of the number of complaints.

Others have phoned the Argus with tales of maggots on their doorsteps and children unable to play outside.

One man from Hove hailed a passing dustcart to take his rubbish, only to be told the team did not collect in his road.

Councillors have been inundated with complaints.

Now council chief executive Glynn Jones has told Sita to sort out the mess and publicly explain what has gone wrong.

Mr Jones issued a rare statement overriding his officers while the council leader Lynette Gwyn-Jones was on holiday.

It bluntly said Sita management should pull out all the stops and do what it is supposed to do - collect refuse from every home on the designated day - cleanly and efficiently.

Mr Jones reminded the company: "We chose Sita over a number of other contractors because it promised it could deliver a better service - something local people told us loudly and clearly that they wanted.

"We also chose to pay an extra £2 million a year of council tax payers' money for the more efficient service.

"Sita has had ten months under the new contract and its operations should be shipshape by now. We are clearly not satisfied and the time for excuses is over."

The more expensive Sita service is partly responsible for the rise in council tax bills for Brighton and Hove residents since April. The new service has added £21 to the average band D bill.

The angry chief executive has summoned Sita management to appear before the council's scrutiny board on September 14 at Brighton Town Hall.

The tough stance was welcomed by Paul Elgood, leader of the Liberal Democrats on the council. He, like many other councillors, has been has been inundated with complaints.

Coun Elgood said: "The council should have done something long ago. We have lost patience with Sita."

There were concerns about Sita's service when it took over in November.

The company did not have a good start. There were industrial relation problems when binmen in Hove realised Sita was paying less than their previous employers.

Over the Christmas period some roads did not have a collection for three weeks.

The latest furore follows a change in the rubbish collection day for most of the area, in what the High Wycombe based-company says is a radical new system involving the distribution of the towns' 126,000 properties into three regions.

The new system started three weeks ago. Sita said it would mean a more efficient service which allowed streets to be cleaned after the rubbish had been collected.

But the service has failed because in some parts of the town the rubbish has simply not been collected.

At first the council absolved itself from blame saying it was Sita's fault.

Council leader Lynette Gwyn-Jones asked for patience. Her conciliatory statement was issued eight days before Mr Jones's.

It was in stark contrast to that of the chief executive. It said: "Sita is generally pleased with the performance of its workforce in rising to the challenge but it is in the middle of a settling in period and expects the service to improve substantially over the next few weeks."

It is not only the failure to collect rubbish but Sita's failure to clear up or make arrangements to clear up after major events that has angered residents, holidaymakers and councillors.

After the Radio One Brighton Dance party last weekend a quarter of a mile of Brighton beach at Kemp Town was left a sea of rubbish. A 200m section had to be cordoned off for the whole of Saturday and most of Sunday while it was cleared up.

Tory Opposition leader Geoffrey Theobald said he was worried about the accountability of the new system. "In the old days it was easy would get the officer responsible to come before the committee to say what had gone wrong. Sita seems to be a law unto itself."

Sita denies the job of cleaning up Brighton and Hove is too big for the company. It says the majority of collections are now taking place on the right day but admits there have been isolated areas which have been missed.

Matt Taylor, marketing and public relations manager, said: "We are confident the new system will settle down in the near future."

There are penalty clauses in the contract and Mr Jones is prepared to make Sita pay up if it fails to deliver.

The council's ruling Labour group is aware voters are highly sensitive to frontline services such as rubbish collection and fear failure to get it right could see many of them lose their seats.