Trying and Failing?

There was an old adage which went to the effect that Labour knew how to spend money, but not how to use it.

There was a very small illustration of this near the home of one of our contributors.

There is an empty plot of land owned by the London Borough of Newham. Nothing has been on it for years and it did attract rubbish, often dumped by residents of the neighbouring HMO.

It seems that Newham became aware of the problem and set about doing something. For this they get a cheer and well done.

Their idea was to solve the problem of dumping by putting up a fence around the land. We don’t know the cost and in the greater scheme of things it will be very small beer, but nonetheless with two-three men working  over a two-week period, it will have run into several thousands of pounds.

But this might be a worthwhile cost if it solves the problem.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t. This site was only one of several within yards of each other that Newham refuse teams collect from on a regular basis. Enterprising rubbish dumpers, now, on seeing the fence simply dump their unwanted items on the other side of the road.

Or beside the fence.

Or over the fence.

Or in the yard next door, underneath the sign that says “Do Not Dump Rubbish”.

As we said at the beginning. Spending money is easy. Using money to fix problems is less so.

We know that the mayor has an antipathy regarding using the council’s enforcement powers, and she has precious few enforcement officers left anyway, but an approach which consists of wishful thinking and displacement does not appear to be working. Perhaps it’s time to look at alternatives.

And back to the small plot of land. It's big enough to build two small houses, or a small block of flats which might help to ease either the housing crisis or the budget balances.

You never know, there might be other council sites that are currently eyesores that could be brought into use for socially useful or financially lucrative building projects.