Author Topic: Barnet - Kingdom Ltd at it again - Typical of all that is wrong with outsourcing  (Read 1059 times)

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Offline The Bald Eagle

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Barnet couple fined £1,000 for leaving out bin bags


The couple live in a flat in Mill Hill Broadway (Image: Google Maps)

A couple have been fined more than £1,000 for leaving out their rubbish – even though they say they followed the council’s rules on waste disposal.

Jenni Day and her boyfriend Brian Davis were fined five times in just over two months after leaving bin bags outside their flat in Mill Hill Broadway.

As they live above a row of shops, they do not have a wheelie bin – so on collection days the couple leave their waste on the street between 6.30am and 9.30am in special sacks given to them by Barnet Council.

But despite following all the guidelines on the council’s website, they were given two £400 penalty charge notices (PCNs) for fly-tipping and three £120 PCNs for ‘putting out rubbish outside of banded times’ – adding up to £1,160.

Ms Day said: “We moved in six months ago, and there were no problems for the first few months.

“It started at the beginning of August, and we have now received five fines in total.

“We think the problem is the rubbish is not being collected in time. When an enforcement officer comes along and sees the bags are still here, it is because the council has not taken them away.

“The only way to defeat the PCNs is to email. The council say they will respond within five to ten working days – but it took them nine weeks after the first time we contacted them.

“You can’t talk to anyone. It’s really infuriating.

“The wording of the letter is awful. It makes you feel like a criminal, and we are just putting our bags outside.”

Ms Day said the council’s response asked her to provide evidence they had been disposing of their waste in the correct way.

Although she had not taken photos of the bags that led to the fines, she says her phone is now full of photos of rubbish bags in case it happens again.

Ms Day added: “The council said there is a big back log of cases. I can only imagine it is because other people are having the same problems.”

While the council collects residential waste itself, its fly-tipping enforcement is run by a contractor, Kingdom Services Group, which has its head office in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside.

A Barnet Council spokesman said: “We are aware of the concerns raised by the resident and as a result we have currently suspended the fixed penalty notices while we investigate the circumstances further.

“We would like to apologise for not contacting the resident sooner and we will be in touch with Ms Day once the review has taken place.

“We are committed to ensuring the borough is kept clean and that any potentially fly-tipped waste is investigated, and where it is deemed appropriate, enforcement action is taken.

“As part of this work, enforcement officers will check the contents of suspected fly-tipped waste to try and determine the owner and origin of it.”
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