A ‘waste amnesty’ for residents in Phillipstown, New Tredegar, saw four lorry-loads and 5.5 tonnes of rubbish collected.
The amnesty was arranged by Caerphilly County Borough Council and allowed residents to dispose of items they no longer wanted or needed.
Advice was also given on how best to report fly-tippers.
Cllr Eluned Stenner,local ward member and the council’s Cabinet Member for Environment and Public Protection,said “Residents in Phillipstown told us that rubbish was an issue for them and was impacting on how they felt about their surroundings.
“The council listened to residents’ concerns and the rubbish amnesty was held to provide people with the chance to clear out unwanted items from their homes and gardens.
“It was really positive to see the community of Phillipstown working together on the day, with neighbours helping each other carry items from their homes.”
At last a rare sighting of the council wardens! It’s a pity we don’t see them out in Caerphilly a more often. I would also like to ask why are they dressed like police constables? Surely it against the law to Impersonate a police officer? Also how much is there uniform costing the tax payer? Between their wages and uniform this useless department is costing us a pretty penny. Let us have real police constables on our streets not fake ones.
Over the years I have seen previous news reports on how the council has helped this area, surely the community must help themselves we have a waste Collection service in the borough but people are too lazy to put their items out. We can’t continue to put money into this area there is other parts of the borough that needs help not just this area.
Yes,I agree all funding should be put into putting police officers back on patrol in our communities.
Community Support Officers and these other quasi police organisations such as council wardens should be abolished – as they are a total waste of taxpayers money.
I also thought on reading this article that it was disgusting that 5.5 tonnes (4 lorry loads )of rubbish was collected from this community – as you say the council provides a collection service for bulky items which this community has shunned,either because they are too lazy or because they don’t want to pay the small fee for collection.
They also know that if they wait long enough and complain, that exercises like this one will take place and their rubbish will be collected for free.
I would like to know why the council haven’t taken action against individual residents rather than waste taxpayers money in this way ?
Why haven’t the local councillors brought this issue up sooner – before the community was allowed to get in such a state ?
Being retired gives me a lot of time on my
hands so i decided to find how much those Hi visabilty jackets are i assume they are for protection against knifes and guns so a simple search discovers each one costs £350 each multiply that over 8 of these fellows and we have a staggering £2,800 alone. This department must be costing us thousands along with their wages. What excatly do they do? By the seems of it collect rubbish, Dont we already have a department for that called bin men?? And the council wonder how they can save money. Easy scrap this usless department. They same to me to be a jack of all trades master of none.
Another coordiated attack by the people (by Edward’s own admission) with too much time on their hands!
Firstly, if their uniform is so close to that of a police officers how are you able to confidently identify them as Community Safety Wardens?
I have to admit until quite recently I used to assume they were police officers but as they have COMMUNITY SAFETY WARDEN clearly written on the back of their jackets then i put this down to my own ignorance.
Whilst there’s nothing wrong with holding and voicing strong opinions, your level of criticism towards CSWs seems disproportionate. As a regular reader of Caerphilly Observer I have seen you use any excuse to criticise them, oddly even under completely unrelated articles.
The argument you repeatedly present suggests that there is a direct choice between funding CSWs or putting more police on streets. If there are just eight CSWs then surely cutting this department and redirecting money towards the police with their relatively huge budget would have no significant impact. Any minor difference it would make still does not justify the criticism you constantly level at them on this website.
In reality, getting rid of CSWs would just mean no CSWs and no more police on the beat. Would you prefer this? It’s hard to tell Mr Smith/Coffi….
Whilst it is difficult to quantify the impact the presence of CSWs (and police) have in communities I feel i speak for most people, including my local Councillor when I say they are a welcome presence within communities. Studies show the primary reason people want to see my police patrolling streets is for reassurance not enforcement. By this reckoning, people mistaking for police officers is surely a good thing!
May i suggest that if you are to continue your bizarre unstained attack on CSWs you back up your claims with a bit more substance? Also, thank you for informing me how many of them there are (8?). If that is across the whole of the borough then i’m surprised I see them as often as I do!
With regards to Mr Coffi’s comments about why the council have carried out waste amnesty ‘rather than take action against individuals’, the article mentions it was for residents to get rid of unwanted items. What offence/type of action are you referring to?
The article referred to residents complaining that rubbish was blighting their area.It also went on to say that residents were given advice on how to report fly tipping – which suggests that the complaints were about fly tipped rubbish – this is what needs action ( reporting / catching those responsible ).
Firstly I earned my retirement after years of hard work. On your second point I am able to tell them apart only by looking closely at their uniform police have a badge and chequered stripes. Don’t you think it’s wrong that a security type firm can parade around like a police constable. To me it’s a smoke and mirrors trick to make joe public think we have more police than we really do.
Thirdly I think that by scrapping the council wardens would help with police budget, although there is only 8 I suspect that the run costs are much higher. And as Tesco’s says every little helps. My main point was the fact we have this third tier police helping with collecting rubbish, which in my eyes are not what they are employed to do. Nowadays people’s job roles seem to be blurred. One example was in England where police constables was used to pick up and collect rubbish. This wrong and people need to know.
Valid points – but its its only in a minority of job areas – after all we don’t see paramedics litter picking or taking on tasks that are not part of their role.
And as its public money that pays for these services the public have the right to question their actions when they are involved in tasks that are not in their job role.
You would not see this happen in the private sector.
There is no reference to the CSWs in the article so we’ve no idea if they were there to just help collect rubbish. You have just made that assumption. Having worked in the public sector for a number of years i would hazard a guess they were working as part of a multi-agency approach at a community event: No doubt (judging by some of your other comments) this will be dismissed by yourself as some pointless modern day liberal/lefty/PC (insert whichever generic Tabloid phrase you choose) nonsense, but evidence based case studies (and from personal experience) show it has a positive effect. Hence all councils and support networks adopt it.
However, If this sort of community engagement in general is a source of your frustration then I expect to see angry comments from you about fire fighter and their engines attending school fetes, police doing school talks etc and not just for CSWs.
Again, regardless of your opinion, it seems bizarre how much focus, criticism (time researching the cost of their uniforms!) you reserve to this department who account for a relatively small part of the council’s overall budget.