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Comments on Communal Containers

Saturday, 18 December, 2004

On December 18th, 2004 Society chairman, Roger Hinton wrote to Jenny Rowlands Director of Environment at the council expressing concerns that have been raised...

Dear Ms Rowlands

Comments on Communal Containers

I am writing on behalf of the Regency Square Area Society to comment on the proposals for communal rubbish and recycling bins. Our members live in Regency Square and the streets and squares around it including, Cannon Place, Queensbury Mews, Russell and Clarence Squares and Stone and Castle Streets.

We are not happy at the proposal to locate communal bins in our area. The main reason is that we believe that they will be untidy and unsightly. This is a conservation area and is also at the heart of Brighton's conference and tourist industry. Property owners in our squares are required to paint their houses in a uniform colour and to conserve their period features. The aim is to maintain and improve the appearance of this historic area. We support this aim and we assume the Council does too. It therefore seems quite inappropriate to turn the streets into storage areas for rubbish.

We have campaigned for many years to try to persuade the Council to provide a better refuse collection service. In the last couple of years things have improved significantly, mainly thanks to the work of the enforcement officers who have largely succeeded in persuading people not to put out their rubbish at the wrong times. It is a great pity if the Council is going to undermine its own success by now encouraging people to store their rubbish in the streets.

To quote one of our members: "After several substantial hikes in Council Tax in recent years, we object on principle to receiving a substantially reduced service from the binmen"

Turning to the question of re-cycling, most of our members support it in principle. However, we are unhappy with the proposal to locate containers in streets throughout the area, for the same reasons as mentioned above.

If you wonder why we believe all these bins will be untidy and unsightly, you need only look at the recycling facility at Montpelier Crescent. The appearance of one of Brighton?s finest pieces of townscape is ruined by a rubbish tip. The attached photographs, taken earlier this week, make the point. The Council?s proposals will involve creating four similar sites in Regency Square alone.

Similar conditions already apply in our own area a the top of Cannon Place where recycling bins and commercial refuse containers attract fly tipping and create a very unattractive environment at one of the entrances to the town?s prestigious shopping centre.

We believe that the Council should set itself a target of improving the tidiness and appearance of the town centre streets rather than contributing further to their deterioration.

Yours sincerely, Roger Hinton