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Jun 2023

Last Updated: 23/06/2023

Community

Council's new dog poo policy causes a stink in Knox

by John Grainger

| 24 Jun, 2023

Maxie Schiffman-Rowinski has complained to the council about the new dog-waste bin it has placed in front of her house.

A change in the council’s bin regime is seeing dog-waste pile up by the roadside, according to local residents.

Over the last week, North Yorkshire Council has removed the familiar red dog-waste bins from Knox, which is on the north-west edge of Harrogate. In their place, they have put green wheelie bins, but not all in the same positions as the bins they replace.

Knox resident Maxie Schiffmann-Rowinski said:

“They’ve put a wheelie bin right outside our house, and now it’s filling up with dog poo and it really stinks in this warm weather.

“All of us living down here are pretty angry about this. This lane is very popular with dog-walkers, and some who don’t know about the green bin are just leaving their dog-poo bags on the ground where the dog-waste bin used to be.

“I’ve complained to the council via their online form, but had no reply.”

Asked about the move, Karl Battersby, North Yorkshire Council’s corporate director of environment, told the Stray Ferret the bins had been removed following a service review, and that the council was being guided by good practice outlined by the Waste and Recycling Action Partnership in its Right Bin, Right Place study.

He said:

“The newer bins have a larger capacity and house a wheeled bin. This means they are efficiently emptied by our larger wagons, reducing the risk from manual handling individual bags. With the greater capacity, fewer bins are required which helps to reduce street furniture, particularly in locations where two bins may have been placed close together.

“This and other new bins will be emptied less frequently due to the increase in capacity, but they will be emptied as often as required, taking seasonal variances into account.

“The replacement bin at the end of Knox Lane was planned to be further down the lane, in close proximity to existing street furniture. We will check it’s correctly positioned.”

Paul Haslam, the North Yorkshire councillor serving Bilton and Nidd Gorge, said he was party to the decision-making process that led to the policy change, but that it had not been implemented as he had imagined it would be. He said:

“This looks like a well-intentioned project that’s gone wrong. I agreed with the principle behind the plans: to make it easier by using more machinery, which in some cases would result in changes of locations and frequency of emptying.

“But it’s quite obvious that the way it’s turned out is not ideal – there are not enough bins and some of them are in the wrong place.”

North Yorkshire Council's Mr Battersby said that the bin replacements in Bilton and Knox would be followed by others in Harrogate.

He said:

“Surrounding parishes have already had the work completed, and Bilton is the first of the urban areas to start and receive the new bins.”

But Cllr Haslam said the policy needed to be reviewed and that's what the council would do. He said:

“I’ll be meeting with street-cleansing officers on Monday and we’ll be going over the whole of the Bilton and Knox area and seeing how it can be improved.

“The council is not going to roll any more bins out until we’ve got Bilton and Knox right.”

Read more:

Concerns over 'undemocratic' planning meeting on Knox Lane houses

Harrogate council defends new 'oversized' bins

Discarded dog poo bags leaving Harrogate 'disgusted'