The Bin Lady

Our lovely press team at the Council have been known to call me this, as have the occasional Leicester Mercury reporter. Luckily I'm fairly confident this name is not related to clothing or smell but my Cabinet responsibilities! These include wheelie bins, green boxes, street bins, litter and many other refuse based delights.

In the spirit of not sugar coating, today's post is about frustration (and I thought it best to start with a frustration in my own area of responsibility - save colleagues blushes for another day). Part of my reason for standing as a Councillor was frustration. Frustration at not being able to change things, make the area better. Well during the last local elections in May 2007 the thing raised most often with me; on the doorstep, in letters and emails, that people were frustrated with and wanted changing was .....the Wheelie bin. 

Now for people who live in the leafier suburbs and estates of our City this may come as a bit of a surprise.  Surely anti-social behaviour, community facilities, parking, or housing would rate higher? Not in Westcotes!

For anyone reading this who isn't well acquainted with the fab area around Narborough Road a little bit of explanation may be needed.  My area consists almost entirely of terraced streets, many with doors facing directly onto the street, nearly all with limited outdoor space. Unfortunately this has led, in many of our local roads, to the large ugly grey plastic things becoming a fairly permanent feature. A feature that made everywhere look scruffier, made walking around with a push chair, a wheelchair or a sight impairment incredibly difficult and scarily made great targets for would-be arsonists.

Getting wheelie bins off the streets would (I thought) be a fairly easy thing to sort if elected - I couldn't have been more wrong.

It all started well, we were a pilot area for a City Warden, we were a pilot area for getting bins off streets - focusing on the worst affected block in the area - the streets off Shaftesbury Road and I (foolishly it would seem) thought that once we started issuing fines and everyone got into the habit of putting their bin away the problem would be solved! 

It's not a straight forward business fining people for leaving their bin in the street. Firstly you put notices around reminding everyone to take their bins in or they can be fined, then the City Wardens go door to door checking if people are able to move their bin and if they have suitable storage (usually the side alley) - trying to talk to as many people as possible at different times and on different days. If people still leave their bin out they are issued with a special notice that gives them three weeks (no you can't get fined when you go on holiday for a week - whatever the Daily Mail says) to take their bin in.  Only after all this has happened do they get issued with a fine!

Even the kids
hate the bins!

These are streets that I go up and down on a daily basis to take my kids to school.  I see how litter gets in behind the bins out on the street, how the more bins that are left out - the more rubbish there is dumped on pavements. I've picked up bins that have been overturned by people on their way home from a night out so that the kids don't have to walk in the road. I'm not a morning person and seeing this every day does nothing for my temperament.

We have had some successes, there are significantly less bins on those streets now than before we started and people have told me some great things about speaking to Neighbours for the first time ever and taking in bins when they're away for the weekend.  For an area like mine, with a fairly high turnover of people in lots of rented accommodation, people introducing themselves to their Neighbours is a big deal - it helps make people feel safe and part of a community.

So why is this one of my big frustrations? Two problems; firstly we didn't get a ripple effect through the area of people realising we're cracking down and taking their bins in and secondly the problem keeps coming back. If you're a student and leave for the Summer on a Wednesday you leave your bin out for the Friday collection - where it stays until a new tenant arrives! Same applies for any rented property and unfortunately the law says we can only fine those living in the house and not the Landlords.

The bin lady tag started off when the Daily Mail decided to focus hatred on not only the Wheelie bin but also all methods Councils used to try and prevent them becoming unsightly fire hazards, I kept being asked to approve comments defending what we do. Seems odd to some defending something that I will openly admit hasn't totally solved the problem, but unless people in Westcotes (and Castle, Fosse and a number of other terraced parts of our City) can walk in their own streets unhampered by wheelie bins then I will continue to defend it, fight for resources for it and support the residents who want this problem sorting. Having said that I am open to all (sensible and legal) suggestions as to how we combat this problem.

This is still a priority for me because it's still a priority for my constituents.  It can be a fight getting people to care about an area when they may only live there for a year or less but, for all of us who have made Westcotes our home, it's a fight worth having.  I may be a frustrated bin lady but I'm still a determined one!

My home

Every Saturday I look at the Leicester Mercury property section, and gaze longingly at gardens with enough room for climbing frames and trampolines and read out descriptions (in an M & S food porn type way) of cloakrooms with WC, playrooms, office spaces and greenhouses.

These are all things that as a Mum of a 4 and (very nearly) 7 year old appeal, that we do not have.

My Tomato plants!

However we are not looking to move house! Why not? Two reasons really, Firstly I would no more assume that I'll be re-elected in May than I would assume my tomato seeds will produce plenty of tomatoes. Both are dependant on care, attention and hard work - they are also dependant on a number of things I have little or no control over. For the tomatoes the weather is the obvious thing (although a neighbours cat knocking them over repeatedly wasn't in my control either) for the election the weather may also play a part, as may national and/or international politics, the economy and countless other factors. All this boils down to it not being the most financially stable thing to do!

Secondly, and probably even more importantly, is we don't want to leave Westcotes!

Ward boundaries are not usually top of the list when thinking about moving house but for us they matter. Many local Councillors don't live in the wards they represent (although usually live near them), my intention here is not to criticise anyone for that, but, it's not for me (or Andy luckily).

Westcotes is my home, I moved here 10 years ago to study at DMU, living on Barclay Street. I moved in with Andy, one street away, about 4 years later. I wanted to represent the area I live in. I wanted to make the area I live in better. I wanted to work for a community that I related to and that could relate to me.

Our kids are at the local Infant School, the older one will be moving to Juniors in September, they went to playgroup at the local churches and singing at the West End Neighbourhood Centre. We use the fabulous library on Narborough Road (more about that another time), cycle on the Great Central Way and visit Bede Park and Westcotes Gardens to play.

We have delighted at the new shops in the area, Yesim Patisserie (best aubergine dip ever), the International Supermarket (bags of Coriander to send to my step mum), the cakes at Polish Taste on Hinckley Road, and still regularly use the long established Londis (as a student I even shopped there in my slippers!).

On a night out with my friends we invariably start at Entropy and usually finish at O Bar (unless tempted by a curry at Namaste) with the middle part of the route taking in the latest new bar.

The planning applications, the opening hours, the play equipment, the bus services, the over grown trees, the school aftercare, the bins, the parking, the late night noise, the litter - these are all things which we don't just care about because we're the local Councillor and we're meant to. We care about them because it's our area too, it's where our kids are growing up, where our friends and family come to visit, it's our home.

As a local Councillor I get very little of my casework from the regular advice surgeries we run. I get stopped at the school gate, in the library, at the park and in the shops fairly often though. Residents in Westcotes know they can stop me for a chat if I'm dressed up for a meeting or have nipped down for a pint of milk in my jogging bottoms.

This being my home makes it far easier to understand and empathise with the problems my constituents face. That may be noisy neighbours, bins left on pavements, nowhere to park, litter from take-aways or concerns about housing. It also makes it easier to understand, although even harder to justify or explain, the frustrations at how long things take to happen.

I promised I wouldn't sugar coat, so tomorrow I'll talk about some of those delays and frustrations but not today - small people want feeding, taking to the park etc.

My Street - if someone clever can tell me how to turn the
picture the right way up - I'd be very grateful!

For today though I'll accept that on Saturday (lottery result depending as there are 3 or 4 streets in Westcotes that would tick every box) I'll be looking through the property pages as usual without really wanting to move. We may not have a garden and downstairs loo but this isn't just any house - it's a Westcotes house, so I'm happy!

Unsure beginnings

The temptation for me to start a blog waxes and wanes. Often I come to the realisation that trying to fit something else into the day may be the 'straw', this worry combined with a general sense of; why would anyone read it, will I remember to update it, how will I keep a focus on my ward of Westcotes rather than straying into a more general blog on life and politics in Leicester, the national agenda or my hectic but very enjoyable home life?

In the end I've decided to try and stop worrying quite so much and just see what happens! If this is one of the blogs that gets occasional random posts and very rarely updated I'll apologise now!

So I've said why the idea wanes but not so much of why it waxes. A tempting new way of communicating with people? An opportunity to commit to paper (well metaphorically) the successes and challenges of being a local Councillor for Westcotes? A chance to put longer and more complex issues on record than is possible in a leaflet? These are key. There is a more over-riding reason though.

Fairly often I get told I'm not a 'normal politician'. Depending on who says this I am in turns pleased and furious! For local Councillors there isn't (and should never be) any such thing. If we are all the same, think the same, dress the same, approach a problem in the same way - this is when politicians fail. We fail to understand and appreciate difference, we stop relating to people and letting them relate to us and we fail to tackle problems in innovative ways. Crucially we also fail to engage people in how important politics is and how exciting playing a part in it can be.

There are local elections in Leicester next year and I'm spending a lot of my time talking to people who may consider standing. This blog will (hopefully) be one of the ways of de-mystifying what we do, not sugar coating nor over-egging, and how life fits in around it with varying degrees of success!

So I suppose the over-riding idea of this blog is to show there's no such thing as normal!