• AS residents of West Hampstead’s Iverson Road and Maygrove Road, we and our neighbours were shocked and outraged to discover Camden Council is about to scrap our weekly bin collections.

Aside from the inherent unfairness of requiring those households that will soon receive only fortnightly collections to keep paying the same council tax as those that will continue to enjoy weekly service, we are aggrieved by the lack of any formal consultation or right of appeal.

Camden will not even change a street’s parking control hours unless at least 10 per cent of local residents have participated in a consultation. So it’s mind-boggling that the council would consider the 279 people it heard from in early 2015 – barely one in 1,000 Camden residents – a sufficient mandate to impose these cuts, especially when Labour was elected in the 2014 council elections on a manifesto promise to keep weekly bin collections.

The council is well aware of the already intolerable situation on our particular streets. Less than three months ago, a Maygrove/Iverson Road deputation addressed the council chamber on the “obstacle course” of fly-tipped rubbish in West Hampstead. They were attacked by Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors for daring to raise the issue.

At the same time Iverson Road residents received letters from the council noting the serious rat infestation affecting one-third of the street and advising residents to “properly dispose of rubbish for the weekly [sic] collection” in order to help tackle this.

Both these problems are only going to get worse from April when the rubbish begins to build up for twice as long. At best, Camden’s Labour councillors are being extremely naïve if they think their policy will not cause similar problems on other streets.

DAVID BRESCIA
Iverson Road, NW6
CHANTELLE DE VILLIERS
Maygrove Road, NW6