Agenda item

10.1

It was formally moved by Councillor John Booker and formally seconded by Councillor Keith Davis, that this Council:-

(a)        notes that South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive uses Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and software, etc., to tell passengers where the bus is and inform the person at the bus stop how long they have to endure their wait there;

(b)        believes this Council should introduce a Ward trial where this type of system is applied to bin lorries, whereby customers could register their mobile phone with the advertised SCC number, and on bin collection day they would receive a text stating "your bin lorry is ten minutes away, please put your bin out for collection, today is green/black/blue/brown bin";

(c)        recognises that many people forget to put their bin out for collection; a black bin full of domestic waste that is not emptied on collection day will have waste up to a month old by the time of the next collection; and in summer months especially, this would be detrimental to public health;

(d)        believes that this would alleviate the amount of litter strewn around our streets resulting from bins being put out prematurely in inclement weather conditions;

(e)        notes the 'yield' of the rubbish/waste from the bin lorry, if weighed before and after the Ward trail, would prove if the scheme was successful and worth city-wide roll out;

(f)         further notes that Geo-tracking could replace mobile phone registration, if the number is registered from a home address, with linked postcode; and

(g)        states that the objective of this initiative is cost effective improvement in publichealth, and requests the Administration to assess its feasibility.

10.2

Whereupon, it was formally moved by Councillor Steve Wilson, and formally seconded by Councillor Denise Fox, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the addition of the following words:-

(a)        notes the many inherent flaws in the proposed motion, without even going into what a costly exercise such measures would cost;

(b)        notes that, as a very rough estimate, to fit all the Veolia vehicles in the fleet would need the system to be fitted, along with back up units that would need to be placed to hired vehicles that are used from time to time, therefore for the units and fitment alone would cost around £15,000;

(c)        further notes that whilst the cost of the actual system could not be properly estimated, the last minor change requested to be made to Veolia CRM system was in excess of £15k; the scheme would likely need someone to oversee the system, and that even part-time this would likely be £10k a year and there would also be administration set up costs of around £25k;

(d)        notes that, regardless of cost, waste collection crews do not follow a set route, unlike buses, therefore it is impossible to give a “10 minute warning” as the crew could be in the next street but may not collect the bin for another hour;

(e)        further notes that Sheffield City Council trialled a scheme a number of years ago where students could sign up for a text reminder the night before their scheduled collection day, and the sign up rate was extremely poor and the trial was dropped;

(f)         believes that the original proposal rests on the highly dubious assertion that the vast majority of Sheffield residents are at home and able to place their bin out in the daytime, and further believes that UKIP, a self-proclaimed “party of the people”, without any evidence of this, should really know better;

(g)        further contends that the Council asks residents to place their bins out by 7am, with many people putting out their bin the night before, so as to avoid any confusion and miss a collection and that such a scheme, as originally proposed, could lead to an over reliance on the reminders;

(h)        notes that Veolia already provide a yearly collection calendar to those households who have to place their containers out for collection; therefore, the number of collections reported as being missed due to the resident forgetting to place their containers out is small, and as such believes this is not an issue than needs addressing; and

(i)         further believes that residents can easily find their collection day online and that it is incredible that a party like UKIP, who have frequently decried that the UK is a “nanny state”, have come up with such a scheme and that this does really denote that UKIP have ran out of all ideas, and relevance, now that the country has voted to leave the EU.

10.3

On being put to the vote, the amendment was carried.

10.4

The original Motion, as amended, was then put as a Substantive Motion in the following form and carried:-