From: Clive Denton
Date: 2008-07-25 15:17:44
Right of households to rubbish bin collection by councils to be (Secretly) abolished By Christopher Hope, The TelegraphLast Updated: 11:06PM BST 19 Jul 2008 The government is to give councils the power to refuse to collect rubbish if home owners fail to abide by draconian rules which may include leaving bins in the right place, sticking to weight restrictions and following strict recycling policies. Labour is quietly pushing the new rules through parliament without any debate after it proposed amendments to a 130-year-old law which has, until now, made it a statutory duty of local authorities to collect household waste. There are fears that the changes to the law will lead to large increases in fly-tipping, bonfires of noxious substances and rat infestations around uncollected waste. Despite this, there will no reduction in council tax for home owners. Read Full Report A postcard from killjoy Britain … Last updated at 9:36 PM on 24th July 2008 Source: The Daily Mail With the summer holidays getting into full swing this weekend, I suppose it was inevitable that someone would find a way of banning ice cream vans. Worcester Council has decreed that no van can play its chimes for more than four seconds every three minutes. That’s barely enough time to belt out the first bar of the Teddy Bears’ Picnic. Cough and you’ll miss it. And the noise mustn’t exceed 80 decibels at a distance of 25ft. Read Full Report Trader is fined £300 by council for using black bin bags instead of grey By Daily Mail ReporterLast updated at 9:56 AM on 25th July 2008 A boutique has been fined £300 for throwing away rubbish in the wrong coloured bin bags. Shopkeepers in Muswell Hill are ordered to put their waste out in special grey sacks. However, the company that supplies the sacks had run out of them, so staff at Charli, a designer fashion store, were forced to use normal black bags instead. To their horror, Haringey council officials patrolling the area spotted the four bags left outside the store and imposed a £75 fine for each. Shop owner Sangita Ibrahim, 47, said: ‘The shop was really busy and they came in like the Gestapo. ‘Staff were told they would face criminal prosecution and receive a criminal record for the bags. I felt like I was going to be frogmarched away.’ Read Full Report Painter given £30 fine for smoking ‘at work’…in his own van By Daily Mail ReporterLast updated at 11:28 PM on 24th July 2008 For painter and decorator Gordon Williams, his van is simply a means of getting from A to B. But council officials chose to give the vehicle a more lofty status. When they spotted him behind the wheel with a cigarette, they handed him an on-the-spot fine of £30 – for smoking in his place of work. Read Full Report
