Leeds city council are dreadful

bap98189

muddypaws2807 wrote: »

i wear I am not a person to complain but LCC are a joke, i pay £74.00 per month in tax to them without fail. I have as others had to endure nearly 8 weeks of rubbish not collected due to strike.

Go onto their website and look up how much of your council tax is used for refuse collection and similar services. It is a tiny percentage. The vast majority of council spending is on education, and then social work. In know our council spent less than 15% of its budget on such services.

Then coming up to xmas we are told to put bins out on Sunday (a day early) and whilst it snows it it transpires they canot get the HUGE lorry down our street due to snow fall and health and safety.

Seems fair enough to me. As someone who has driven HGV's in snow, I can tell you an out of control lorry would pose a very real danger in a residential street.

But, this is the best bit we residents can even though LCC have NOT gritted the path or the road ONCE

I think a lot of people view gritting in the past through rose tinted glasses. I don't remember residential streets being gritted when I was younger. Main roads yes, but not minor roads. And as for pavements, I remember people used to shovel snow off the pavement outside their house, but it seems nobody is willing to do that anymore and instead expects it to be done for them.

I think we should do like they do in some US states and make it the responsibility of residents to clear the pavements outside their houses or on their streets.

rsykes2000

muddypaws2807 wrote: »

i wear I am not a person to complain but LCC are a joke, i pay £74.00 per month in tax to them without fail. I have as others had to endure nearly 8 weeks of rubbish not collected due to strike. Then coming up to xmas we are told to put bins out on Sunday (a day early) and whilst it snows it it transpires they canot get the HUGE lorry down our street due to snow fall and health and safety. But, this is the best bit we residents can even though LCC have NOT gritted the path or the road ONCE so LCC have not gritted therefore their Refuse Lorry cannot get down our street. Its now 4th jan and we all put our bins out as usual and yup no collection, and here I am just issued my Direct Debit to pay LCC for my council tax and just not getting the service at all. All residents are hacving to park their cars away from home as the roads are un grittted its disgusting, what can I do?

8 weeks is very poor, but you were unlucky, my bit of Leeds (definitely not an affluent part) had collections around every 3 weeks during the strike.
The Council *can't* grit every road, there isn't the capability and more importantly the time to do this to every single street, so if one is ungritted then it would be foolish in the extreme to try and get a huge lorry down it, not just a 'H&S' matter, it's just plain common sense. Can you imagine the hassle, huge compensation and insurance claims if a large lorry wiped out half the cars in your street ?
What you can do - buy some grit / salt and a shovel, get the other residents and DIY.

voiceofreason

Have you contacted your local councillor and asked them what they're going to do about it?

They might be able to do more than a load of keyboard-belters on a message board - and if it's as dangerous as you say, you'd better do it sooner rather than later.

Chop-chop!

voiceofreason

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ - go on, get their details and let them know!

mrsmortenharket

ian1969uk wrote: »

£74 a month for council tax? Leeds is cheap!

I'm moving to Leeds!

muddypaws2807

Thanks, i have written to the Council and also written to my MP not that it makes any difference. To make matters worse we have had a deluge of snow today and guess what, no freaking gritting.

Oh and for those who think I look through rose tinted glasses regarding gritting, I can assure you it was gritted, and how do I know? Because I used ot make slides onthe roads and paths and the gritters came round within 24hrs and ruined them!

Tunes_2

I actually think the council have done a great job in keeping the main routes around Leeds open.
And as for keeping ALL roads and paths clear of ice/snow....WHAT!! Just try and imagine how much it would cost for all the vehicles, rock salt and 000's of man hours to complete and then when the snow melts and takes all the rock salt away with it...guess what....? They would have to do it all again! And in the cold snap we are in the middle of this would mean multiple visits. Your £74 p/m looks good value to me.
The reality is that we are in the middle of Winter and conditions can be treacherous, but we have to take more care and adapt to the conditions.

Kazipoo

I think the problem with LCC is that the gritters they use are not spreaders, therefore an amount of grit gets dumped in a line in the middle of the road, doesn't really benefit anyone.

The street I live in has had snow on the ground since the week before Christmas, but I don't expect them to come and grit it. I do expect them to grit major roads though, and when you see roads like the outer ring road like an ice-skating rink, it makes you wonder if they have actually bothered.

woody01

ian1969uk wrote: »

£74 a month for council tax? Leeds is cheap!

Thats what i thought.
Mine is £192pm

pitkin2020

mrsmortenharket wrote: »

I'm moving to Leeds!

me too thats cheaper than here we pay just shy of £100 for band A per month, maybe that why our bins are collected every 2 weeks still