Archives for January 2011

The vexed question of how often our bins should be emptied is once again being discussed in our town halls.

One man who would like to see councils provide weekly bin collections is Eric Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, who has been quoted as saying: "It's a basic right for every Englishman and woman to be able to put the remnants of their chicken tikka masala in their bin without having to wait a fortnight for it to be collected."

In recent times a growing number of local authorities have ditched weekly collections of non-recyclable waste in an attempt to cut down on the amount of rubbish sent to landfill sites.

Conservative-controlled North Kesteven District Council in Lincolnshire switched to fortnightly collections in 2004 and the authority now has one of the highest recycling rates in England.

Councillor Geoff Hazelwood, North Kesteven's Executive Board Member for Environmental Services, believes Eric Pickles has got it wrong.

The Conservative councillor said: "I think Mr Pickles is ill-informed. If we change back to weekly collections, we would be talking about half a million pounds in costs to the council when we are trying to drive down costs."

But many would disagree and argue that fortnightly collections are unhygienic - especially in the summer months - and cutting back on the number of refuse pickups is a just a money saving gimmick.

The Government won't force councils to re-introduce weekly collections, but there does appear to be growing pressure on town halls to look again at this most basic public service.

It's a subject we discussed on the latest edition of the Politics Show in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Sunday at 12 noon on BBC One.

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You can wait ages for a big story and then two come along at once!

On the day it was announced that thousands of new jobs were coming to Hull, one of the city's most familiar political figures announced he was stepping down from the shadow cabinet.

On Thursday morning, Alan Johnson came to the BBC studios in Hull to welcome the news that engineering giant Siemens had chosen the Humber as the preferred site for a new offshore wind turbine factory, which could deliver up 10,000 new jobs in the growing renewable energy sector.

Mr Johnson was on good form as he chatted with presenter Peter Levy and laughed and joked with my colleagues on what was clearly a positive day for Hull.

Fast forward to Thursday afternoon and the news broke that Alan Johnson would be stepping down as Labour's Shadow Chancellor for what he described as "personal reasons."

I spent much of the evening (and it was freezing cold!) outside Hull's Octagon Centre, where members of the Hull West and Hessle Constituency Labour Party gathered to hear from the man who has represented them in Parliament since 1997.

Alan Johnson arrived and left without making any comment - a first for him in my experience - and sped away in a snazzy red Mini, driven by his constituency secretary Tracy Windle.

The opening words in Nick Robinson's report on the BBC News at Ten was me asking Mr Johnson why he had decided to resign out of the blue. Like the rest of the population I had to wait until the following morning's newspapers to discover the reason.

Speaking personally, Alan Johnson's departure from frontbench politics marks the end of an era.

I have spent much of my career following the three big beasts of East Yorkshire politics - Alan Johnson, John Prescott and David Davis. For as long as I have been covering politics, they have all been colourful figures in either the cabinet or shadow cabinet. Mr Johnson will join neighbouring Tory MP David Davis on the Commons backbenches, while Baron Prescott now plies his trade in the House of Lords.

So I eagerly await the arrival of the next generation of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire MPs at the top table of British politics. I just hope they all remember me on the way down.

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