Complaints rise about rubbish in Eastbourne

Rubbish not being collected in Eastbourne Town Centre. SUS-190328-153938001

The complaints come as waste contractor Kier prepares to call time on its contract with Eastbourne council and as more and more residents highlight the issue of litter on the roadside verges on major routes around the town and organise their own litter picks to clean up the town, its parks and beaches.

A group of residents calling themselves the A27 Clean Up Campaign works with partners to decrease and remove the volume of rubbish currently blighting the road.

The Herald is backing demands from people calling that the town be cleaned up.

Rubbish not being collected in Eastbourne Town Centre. SUS-190328-154110001

A spokesperson at Eastbourne council said budgets for street cleansing had not been reduced but that the contract with Kier was coming to an end.

The spokesperson said, “The Kier contract for waste and recycling collection and street cleansing is coming to an end. It is unfortunate, but not uncommon, that service delivery problems occur during the demobilisation of large contracts such as this. This has been compounded by roadworks in the town centre preventing vehicles getting through. We recently brought in two extra vans and six extra street cleansing operatives to boost resources at this time of transition. From July 1, the council will run this service through a new company, South East Environmental Services Limited, under direct control.”

At Kier, a spokesperson said, “Whilst demobilisation of the Eastbourne contract is ongoing it remains the highest performing waste management contract in East Sussex and we have continued to deploy our contracted numbers, maintaining a high level of service. Eastbourne council has also recently contracted additional works from us and we have deployed two extra vans and four operatives to carry out this additional cleaning with a focus on non-contracted areas.

“There are large number of town centre traffic restrictions due to building works in the area and to gain access to restricted areas we have ourselves deployed additional litter picking operatives, resulting in us having no complaints from the council or residents that haven’t been actioned on our worksheets.”