Ealing Council will spend around £300million over 15 years on its new contract with Enterprise PLC to clean our streets, collect our waste and recycling and manage the parks.

This is one of the largest contracts let by Ealing Council and one of the few services that affects every single resident of the borough; yet you would never think that was the case given the way it has been so badly introduced.

Councillor Bassam Mahfouz, who is responsible for this contract, faced a grilling in the Council Chamber recently when Conservative Councillors bombarded him with questions to justify the appalling way it has been introduced.

In response to the many question submitted, he has been forced to admit that:

He has no plans to compensate residents for the poor start to the service, because the contract allows a three-month bedding in period. Did he really expect residents to suffer three months of poor service?

There was no escalation to the Chief Executive of Enterprise. Why has he been so sloppy in his attitude?

Five months before the contract started he knew that that Enterprise would be using temporary vehicles to collect dry recycled waste. Residents have become used to sorting out their recycled waste. So why does he find it so acceptable that residents sort out their recycled waste only for it to be all thrown in together?

Does he really find it acceptable that there are 27% more reported flytips than last year; and that only 67% of streets are now not swept to standard compared to 95% last year?

Does he think it is acceptable that 5,400 residents, who called to complain about the poor service in April, hung-up without getting a reply?

I am determined that the residents of the borough have the first class service they are used to and we’ll keep pressing until they do. Let’s start by Cllr Bassam Mahfouz facing up to his responsibilities and stepping down to let someone run else the service.

Meanwhile I encourage residents to keep recycling.  The Council can only improve the service and, from our perspective, it’s been rubbish so far!