Keith Clarke's impassioned plea to Ealing Council

Resident Keith Clarke, who lives on the Vale, W3, has written an impassioned letter to Ealing Council, including Jason Stacey, about the state of the streets near where he lives.

We are reproducing his photographs (see box, right) and the letter (below) and will report any developments on the rubbish situation in the Vale:

When I moved into Acton seven years ago, it seemed in danger of disappearing under a mountain of rubbish.  Today, it would be difficult to put hand on heart and report any improvement.

The first of the two pictures attached shows the pile of rubbish which has graced the end of Du Cros Road, W3 for the last week. Of course, I can report this to the council, which will remove the heap. (It is too much to hope that the staff of the three refuse collection trucks that stop within sight of this pile each day would report it.) But that is just one specific problem dealt with – when the pile is removed, it will shortly be replaced by another.

Along this stretch of The Vale are many HMOs. The landlords of these properties, when carrying out renovations, have no hesitation in dumping the entire contents of flats on the pavement. Meanwhile, the occupants of the HMOs happily dump their refuse in flimsy plastic bags on the pavement whenever the spirit moves them (the second picture shows our bus stop this morning, at one of its cleaner moments).

Some of these landlords and tenants will know that this is wrong, but don’t give a fig; others will be completely unaware of what the correct procedures are. This will remain the case while there is a culture of ‘dump with impunity’ and while the council does little to address the education deficit. All the posturing and PR in the world counts for little if there is no effort to make correct procedures clearly apparent.

The HMOs have a fairly fast turnover of tenants with English as a second language. Where are the multi-language leaflets explaining what to do with their rubbish? Where are the letters to landlords spelling out their responsibilities?

I have suggested all this until I am blue in the face, but the council seems to have no appetite for thinking outside the box and tackling this problem in a way that might actually work.  In fairness, the council does a great job of removing all the detritus when it is reported - it has taken away more abandoned fridges than I've had hot dinners. But where is the long-term planning on this?

March 13, 2009