What price a promise?

Published: 1:41 AM June 23, 2009 Updated: 6:51 AM October 14, 2020

OPINIONS on the rubbish bag saga are divided. The 95 per cent in favour of bins must clearly be a figment of someone s imagination. We all went away happy from a residents association meeting a year ago when Cllr Gerry Vincent told us that he had receiv

OPINIONS on the rubbish bag saga are divided.

The 95 per cent in favour of bins must clearly be a figment of someone's imagination.

We all went away happy from a residents' association meeting a year ago when Cllr Gerry Vincent told us that he had received a written assurance from the chief executive that after the end of the pilot period, no residents would be compelled to have bins.

This assurance was repeated in a circular letting in March to several of our members from Margaret Hodge MP. In it she said that the council would be honouring its pledge to residents who wished to opt out.

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But we now get the truth from a council PR person quoted: "The only properties which will be exempt will be those which have no room to store the bins".

Proof, surely, of what little trust you can plane in a promise from Barking and Dagenham Council.