Cheshire East Council have been unable to carry out waste collections in Wilmslow nearly 100 times in the past year due to parked vehicles causing an obstruction.
Data obtained via a Freedom of Information Request revealed that, between 2nd January 2018 and 17th December 2018, Cheshire East Highways were notified of 93 incidents when refuse vehicles were unable to access streets in Wilmslow due to parked vehicles.
The worst affected streets were: Acacia Avenue with 13 recorded incidents in a 6 month period; Leigh Road with 11; Lindfield Estate North with 8; Mount Pleasant with 6; Windsor Avenue with 5 and Vale Road with 4 recorded incidents.
Julian Abbot, who submitted the FOI, said "This waste of our Council Tax money is a direct consequence of CEC & the local Tory councillors refusal to act to solve the parking problem in Wilmslow. From the data you have provided it looks like the unfortunate people on Acacia Avenue didn't get a consistent bin collection for the first 6 months of the year. "
Speaking about the recently parking survey which has been carried out in Wilmslow with a budget of £15,000, he added "Neither did the parking survey include discussions with property owners in Wilmslow such as Emersons who surprisingly have 1,390 private car parking spaces associated with the large number of buildings they own. The team who conducted the survey were completely unaware of this."
Comments
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As the headline title is "....bin collections blocked by parked vehicles" I thought it apt to mention an alternative headline "Public right of way blocked by refuse bins". Somewhere in the CEC regulation and jobsworth papermaze is something to the effect that residents must not put out bins until their designated collection days and place them so they do not obstruct footpaths and driveways etc.
I can only speak for residents in my road but they mostly follow that code. Not the refuse workers however, they have a different set of rules (or maybe no rules, just a timetable for covering their route of the day on piecework terms). Bins do not get returned to where they were collected nor do the operatives very much care once the contents are disgorged. Whilst I can't say bins are habitually left on the carriageway they invariably block a footpath or end up on the opposite side of the road from where they started off; for more than 9 months of the year every other week each household puts out TWO bins so it can be quite a slalom-like barrage of green and silver obstacles.
The heavy lifting has long gone from this vital but somewhat undervalued task - there's a lot of footwork involved, a bit of push/pull, some policing and the very occasional self-adhesive label to stick but that's it (indeed it can be a bit of a cushy number since one good neighbour even provides the full crew with a mug of tea and biscuit early each Monday morning....)
The least the operatives could do is make sure they observe the rules we residents are expected to follow.
People will park anywhere they like just to save £1 per day. If money is to be spent on new car parks then the parked cars that are a nuisance to the residents of Wilmslow will have to be 'persuaded' [=forced] to pay and go and park in them. There needs to be a procedure whereby residents and their visitors can park outside their own homes but visitors to the town cannot. Ideas anyone?
As I’ve said previously - a shortage of car parking is one issue. Leaving your car for as long as you wish, wherever you want and regardless of the effect on the roads, cycle lanes, driveways and pavements of the people who live locally is a completely separate issue. We are now at the point where it is ok to park somewhere if there are no yellow lines to say you cannot.
In addition to truck access issues Hawthorn Grove is downright dangerous as cars park on the junction with Hawthorn Lane every day the sorting office is open. I don’t know what he is doing with his time.