Wasteful policy? (Douglas Young)
The SIC has withdrawn the community skips service where rural dwellers could dispose of bulky items in an effort to save money and replaced it with their own uplift scheme. This commenced with a truck and two employees driving a round trip of 50 miles to collect five items from Sumburgh.
How this is cheaper than a return empty/full skip service with several tons of rubbish, along with a huge increase in vehicular pollution is known only to hundreds and hundreds of pen-pushing managers with damn-all to do but dream up savings like these.
Douglas Young
Sumburgh
Albie Redshaw
Totally agree, it seems that the people hardest hit are those not living in Lerwick. The SIC are cutting the basic essentials of folk living outside the town, maybe we should all have a reduction in our counci tax? and charge more for those in the town with all the facilities. I also feel that cuts must happen within the management side, and maybe even staffing levels to effect a more substantial saving to the current SIC problems.
Shuard Manson
I see whaur you ir comin fae, dir has been mony hits in lerrick (we mebbe dinna pleeps as much?) Da reality is dir is cuts awye. Stop thinkin you ir a special case an cut yir cloth accordingly.
Shuard Manson
I reckon da hardest hit is da poor & da disabled but dat disna fit da martyrs in da ootlyin areas
Marina Thomason
I am a pleepsin martyr living in one of da ootlyin areas of Shetland.
If I book an uplift of 6 items for £30 presumably the truck is obliged to come and pick these up – even if no other person in Yell makes a booking?
How can it be cost effective for two men to drive to north Yell in a refuse truck from Lerwick and back again for a £30 payment? This is a round trip of about 115 miles and includes a ferry fare.
People in and around Lerwick still have the option of disposing of bulky items free of charge, seven days a week, at the Gremista Recycling Centre. People tend to pleeps and moan when they think that there is a valid reason for doing so.
Ryan Leith
To clarify a point raised in Albie’s comment above, residents of Lerwick do pay relatively more Council Tax than householders in outlying areas. Each house is allocated a council tax band (A to H) based on it’s assumed capital value as of 1 April 1991. New builds are also assigned a nominal 1991 value. One of the criteria used to determine a property’s value is it’s distance from Lerwick so, for example, a house in Northmavine will be in a lower Council Tax band than an identical house in Lerwick.
John McPhail
Even wir isles are at this “centralisation”.
🙂
Colin McKearney
@ Ryan Leith. Not always so Ryan , my “old” 3 bed house built in 1993 was the same council tax as one in burnside in Lerwick , same amount of bedrooms etc. They had far more services than we had and for the same money.
Ryan Leith
Colin, the location of a property is only one of the criteria used in valuation. The external area, type of house (detached etc.) and standard of build are also considered. Each Council Tax band covers a range of values, which may explain why your property was in the same band as a similar property in Burnside. I commented on this to add clarification as I used to survey properties for Council Tax purposes as part of my employment as a Technician for the Orkney and Shetland Valuation Joint Board.