Council Rejects Residents’ Calls

A public meeting discussing Douglas Council’s move to fortnightly bin collections probably didn’t go as councillors planned, as successive residents spoke out against the change.

Council leader Clare Wells and head of environmental services councillor Falk Horning took questions for over an hour at the meeting chaired by Captain of Lonan Stephen Carter.

The evening began with Mrs Wells giving a detailed account of the council’s position, which included how the policy change was developed and to address what she saw as falsehoods, including that the policy was introduced to save money.

Amongst other topics, Mrs Wells detailed that recycling had been stagnant in Douglas for many years before the switch, which the council has said was done to encourage recycling. 

However, since the switch that has grown from 5% of waste to 15%.

After her over 20 minute statement was finished, residents had their chance to ask questions and it quickly got personal as one resident accused the leader and the council of being arrogant in setting out the policy and refusing to change it.

Amongst other complaints was a lack of public consultation, a lack of democratic mandate and a lack of consideration being given to those living in flats and many homes in central Douglas that don’t have gardens or other outside areas to keep extra bins or recycling boxes.

Mrs Wells said no consultation was held as one wasn’t required and Mr Horning said he personally did campaign on the change in the most recent council elections.

We will have a more detailed account of Monday’s meeting later on today.