As promised, here is a second post on why I think that Brent Friends of the Earth are such an ineffective lobbying group, covering tactics.
Their campaign against our waste management plans shows a deeply misguided appraoch. Although I met them with a senior officer at Brent House, and attended on of their member meetings, they failed to voice their opposition to our scheme until 20th October (the very last day of a 50 day consultation). Their contribution proposed opening the consultation all over again, thus delaying the whole thing by at least a couple of months. This is part of a pattern of throwing in random suggestions, often with no evidential backing, very late in the day. Thus at one Executive meeting, Brent FoE suggested we adopt the system used in Sheffield, apparently oblivious that our proposals has been developed over a period of more than a year using extensive comparisions with other authorities. At the next Executive meeting, Brent FoE dropped the Sheffield suggestion and proposed the systems used in either York or Ealing. You simply can't adopt complicated systems in that kind of back of an envelope way. Thus, I think their first error is not to appreciate the intellectual rigour with which the Council's proposals have been developed.
Their second is to throw suggestions in without any warning. During this process, I have been given the imprerssion that Brent FoE do a bit of googling, produce some factoids and throw them in not so much as serious suggestions as simply attempts to derail the adoption of the new system regardless of its merits. An example of this would be their suggestion that Veolia would send waste to China to be processed with child labour, a suggestion for which they produced no evidence whatever.
A third error that an effective lobby group would not make is to take no account of the concerns of the body they are lobbying. Obviously we want to increase recycling, reduce emissions and save money. Remarkably we have a system that fulfills these three objectives. Certainly, at the December Executive they made no effort to engage with constraints such as the inevitably limited budget. Indeed their report of that meeting, makes no reference to what anybody else said at all. From their description, one would imagine that Brent FoE turned up, said their piece and we then voted our policy through without discussion, which was not the case.
Finally, Brent FoE have allowed an impression to be created that they are in the pocket of the Liberal Democrats, who as far as I can see have little or no interest in the Environment. As well as allying themselves with the Liberal Democrats over the waste issue, they have conspicously failed to criticise the Lib Dems poor record on recycling, Sarah Teather's volte face on Brent Cross, the Liberal Democrats' opposition to emissions based parking permits, the decision to cut a post from the Environment Unit, or indeed the abolition of the Green Zone scheme (which was caused by the Con Dem government's withdrawal of grant part way through the year). They have even issued a press release criticising our abolition of the £25 charge for collecting bulky waste. This is an article of faith among Brent Liberal Democrats, but I have never encountered this view except in card carrying Liberal Democrats.
It is hard not to believe that two or three of the members of Brent FoE are more motivated by a strong loyalty to the Liberal Democrats rather than an interest in the Environment.
4 comments:
"We will be going to someone's house every week and collecting something.
So that appears to me to be completely accurate."
Your quote
B FoE were very correct in saying that you did not explain to people that their "rubbish" bins would not be collected weekly
Did you tell us that it wasn't your grey bin? Oh no you didn't!
Come on Mr Powney place a full page advert in the Brent Magazine stating that Brent Residents rubbish bins will be collected fortnightly and see how many people e mail you then - I bet far more than the less than 2000 who replied to the very questionable consultation.
PS I am not a member of BFoE by the way or Brent Lib Dems or whom ever else you would like to blame today!
the waste strategy looks like a good thing in terms of green policy. As I understand, it extends recycling to 28,000 flats - mostly in poorer parts of the borough – THAT IS INCREDIBLE!!! This will increase recycling rates purely because of the sheer volume and will hopefully mean that less money is being spent to bury rubbish under the ground which is where most of the waste made by these 28,000 properties is going.
Forget fortnightly collections of the grey bins should all be recycling as much as possible. What bigger incentive is there to make use of your other bins than saying if you don’t use your other ones to full effect, you’ll leave loads of rubbish in your grey bin that wont be collected for another week, so change your behaviour if you don’t constantly want full bins.
… and another thing FREE bulky waste collection is amazing. I was so aggrieved when this service was given a charge. Glad to see something has been given back to residents and that a Political Party has honoured a main election promise in Brent!
And s/he's not me!
How on earth can you say "your proposals were developed over the course of a year"? You were the OPPOSITION until May!
The so-called consultation was nothing of the sort: it was a deeply flawed exercise in utter venality designed to mislead the people of Brent. NOWHERE did you admit that we are to lose our weekly collections and that we will be forced to have THREE bins outside our homes.
Given the utter mess - and I use that word advisedly - that our collections were over Christmas, I think you and your colleagues face a very real revolt from those of use who pay for your inflated allowances and away days. Our green bins - across Brent - were not collected for THREE weeks. The excuse was that the staff were busy "gritting roads". Not here, they weren't - tell that to the people who fell over and to the six busses stuck for several hours due to your incompetence.
Just tell the truth: you're cutting front line services that actually matter like refuse collections. But you aren't addressing the waste you propagate.
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