• THIS week Camden Council seem quickly to have moved from “Keep Calm and Carry On” to “Crisis? What Crisis?”.

Council leader Sarah Hayward has quit, in the midst of growing chaos and confusion over cuts to rubbish collections.

Labour admitted there were 2,900 calls to the council’s rubbish contractor on just one day last week. Cllr Meric Apak claimed this was “much less [sic] that we were expecting”, while Cllr Hayward said “there will be teething troubles” (Keep calm about rubbish – it’s an offer you can’t refuse, April 6). What an arrogant dismissal of people’s legitimate concerns.

In fact, that huge number of calls means nearly one in 10 affected households called the council on just that single day. Unsurprisingly many reported long waits to get through. There are 97,500 households in the borough and around a third of Camden is affected by the divisive changes.

We’ve heard from countless residents across Camden who are angry and upset about the new policies. At a weekend Conservative street stall there was a queue of people, waiting to sign our petition opposing the changes. Many who have never voted Conservative before promised to back us to reverse this policy. And we’ve even had (discreet) offers of support from Highgate Labour members.

We all want to increase recycling but Labour are disingenuous to pretend this is about anything other than their financial mismanagement and bad decision making. Camden Conservatives have a costed alternative that would allow us to reinstate weekly bin collections by clamping down on wasteful expenditure elsewhere. This policy would cost less than £4 a head to reverse this year.

Camden is an overwhelmingly urban borough, with many multiple-occupancy properties, lacking large front garden spaces. What’s so special about places like Highgate – which led it to being rated last month as one of Britain’s best places to live – is its heritage, its history, its character.

The harmony of our streets with their Victorian, Georgian, and modernist architecture is threatened by a plague of huge black plastic bins. Wherever we live, a walk to work or to the shops is not as pleasant as it was.

Even if everyone was a perfect recycler and rinsed every piece of clingfilm before throwing it away, there are some things which can’t be recycled or go in food caddies. Chicken carcasses, animal waste, cooking oil, and so on, will attract vermin and create a stink, especially in summer. We already have a fly-tipping problem and overflowing public bins. This policy will only make that worse.

Cllr Apak tried to claim the council were managing the situation but did admit “it looks as if we are not coping”. Now Cllr Hayward has announced her resignation, Labour should confess that this policy – which they specifically promised in their manifesto not to introduce – deserves to go straight in the bin.

HENRY NEWMAN, JIM ORMISTON & BEN SEIFERT
Highgate Conservatives