Mikey and Heather do the job 'too risky' for binmen
In mid September the Girl Guides needed to dispose of three old sofas and a fridge from the Guide Hut in Church Walk. They duly called Elmbridge's Environmental Services to book and pay for collection of these items of refuse.
Next day a supervisor of refuse contractors Veolia visited the site to 'assess' it and decreed that for Health'n'Safety reasons, the contractors could not collect the sofas: the Guide Hut is some sixty yards along the pedestrian way from the nearest road, and the poor binmen would have not merely to wheel two of them along on their castors, but actually carry one of them the sixty yards and use a wheeled trolley for the fridge.
Elmbridge Council notified the Guides of the contractors' decision but agreed to try to help resolve this unacceptable situation. The next day there was another "site visit" - this time with the contractors' supervisor AND a council official. Lord knows what this costs the taxpayer in officer and contractor time before so much as a cushion is removed! The contractor agreed that Veolia would collect the sofas - but, for reasons of health'n'safety, only if they were placed on the nearest road so that they could drive up to them.
And so, four mothers of Guides did the job easily that was "too risky" for Veolia's strapping binmen, and wheeled the sofas and fridge the short distance to Church Lane on 13 September, where these feeble contractors collected them for £51 (- that's a whole day's takings on a cake stall at the fair).
The Guides stress that the Elmbridge offical dealing with them was as helpful as could be in trying to resolve this unsatisfactory situation, and without her help the refuse would not have been collected at all. The contractors, however, call the shots - there are, alas, too few companies of the scale required to compete meaningfully for these public contracts.
A 'dangerous' sofa on castors is wheeled along the Walk by Gaynor and Lesley
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