Hastings Street Cleaning & Bin Collection

From this week, the contract with Kier has come to an end, and street cleaning will be brought in-house by Hastings Borough Council, and household refuse and recycling will be dealt with by Biffa (website); good luck with that! 

Kier Cleaning Contract

You may, or may not, have been aware that the cleaning contract with Kier is being ended before the original length of contract, indeed, I wasn't aware until very recently so decided I'd look into it. I have since had confirmation from Hastings Borough Council that the contract with Kier will end in a years time, on the 28th of June 2019. The Council is currently undertaking a procurement process, but it is still early days, 'nothing has yet been decided.' So, no idea yet whether cleaning will be brought in-house or whether a different cleaning company will be used... 

Anticlimax?

And some information too...

The period in-between Christmas Eve and the New Year is always a strange old time, anticlimax for some, meaningless for some others, and many people have at least the week off work, but shops soon re-open! And this year the weather has made it even stranger, with sleet and snow (see the Stacey Marie above, facebook page)...

With gorgeous and bright days, but exceedingly chilly, eg in Warrior Square...

Yet who knows what the weekend will bring, other than more rain showers are forecast, it looks like there will be milder temperatures, with maybe some sunny periods, so it certainly will be changeable, and that's an understatement...

I've spent a while wandering the seafront, as you do, and saw a number of these notices appear, though I wonder how this will be policed, when anti-social behaviour, dogs fouling footpaths and cyclists riding on footpaths aren't policed!?!

I also see that the broken drainage water pipe on the beach below Denmark Place appears to be about to be replaced/repaired, following the backflow apparently overflowing into the road creating a mini-lake outside the Carlisle pub!

And the Hastings Adventure Golf building is back in use following some widening at the corners, and increase in loft space (see previous blog), though I have been informed that there is still plenty of work to carry out inside the building, and it will not be fully functional for the staff until about Easter, though the 3 courses are still open to the public throughout the work, well done there...

Oh, and if you haven't received the Kier/Hastings Borough Council leaflet about Waste & Recycling over the festive period and for 2018, go to the Council website to check.

HBC sorts it out, a wee bit...

Well, the Council, or Kier, sorted out the mess here, for now, meanwhile, they listened to protests about the proposed closure of the public toilets in Ore, which has been reprieved, though they are still going ahead with the closure of the central town loos in Harold Place it would seem. Oh well, cuts have to happen somewhere, taking into account central government's unfair annual reduction in support to Hastings since 2010... 😒