The disposal of bulky rubbish

During the past 100 years, the amount of rubbish generated by the average home has increased dramatically with the arrival of the consumer society but the refuse collection service has not kept pace with this development. Consequently, fly tipping has become a problem, especially in rural areas, while litter has become common sight in the streets, especially at weekends, a situation exacerbated by the proliferation of fast food outlets. 

The dropping of litter, whether carelessly or deliberately, is not only a social crime because it impinges on the freedoms of those who do care for our environment, but is also a breach of the law. The Litter Act of 1983 which was designed to protect our public places has proved to be unenforceable and so prosecutions are rare while the Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act of 1978 which makes it illegal for any item to be abandoned in the open air appears to be equally inoperable. Fly tipping is also prohibited under the Environmental Protection Act of 1990 but only one case has been brought before the magistrates in Bourne since this legislation was introduced.

We therefore have a situation in which larger items such as refrigerators, ovens, beds and even furniture, are often dumped in the countryside because the local council refuses to take them away without charging a fee which many people are reluctant to pay and so unwanted items are often left in isolated spots under cover of darkness. 

An affluent society and the popularity of consumer packaging added to the problem as the years went by and local councils decided that additional refuse disposal facilities were needed in addition to the weekly collections, otherwise the dustmen, or refuse collectors as they are now called, would be unable to cope. On 22nd May 1976, South Kesteven District Council agreed to site a skip in the council depot at Lound, two miles south west of the town, for Saturday morning collections between 9 a m and noon. The facility was requested by Bourne Town Council because of the increasing amount of rubbish being generated in the town and the district council promised: "If enough people use it, we will provide one at regular intervals."

THE CATTLE MARKET SITE

This proved to be the case and the following December, the location was moved to the old cattle market site near the town centre with a fortnightly collection but this proved to be unpopular. In 1981, Messrs Lyall and Company, the auctioneers who administered the market, complained that there had been problems with people dumping rubbish there at all times and not merely when the skip was present on a Saturday morning and this had been causing "considerable wear and tear" to the site and insisted that it be moved elsewhere.

Astonishingly, the skip was then moved to the small car park behind Wake House but this too brought complaints, this time from the town council who said that it was too close to the Register Office where weddings were held, especially on Saturdays, that the dust was detrimental to nearby residents in Burghley Street and that valuable car parking spaces were being lost. The new arrangement therefore did not last and within six weeks, the fortnightly refuse skip was back at the cattle market site after the auctioneers had been temporarily appeased.

But the arrangement enjoyed only a temporary reprieve and in September 1986, town councillors received further complaints that a health hazard was being caused because of the old problem of people were dumping waste before the lorries had arrived and one member, Councillor Norman Thwaites, had the vision to suggest that a skip should be sited there permanently instead of Saturday mornings only. "The rubbish would then be in a proper container in readiness for collection", he said. This did not materialise and as the cattle market site was about to be redeveloped, the facility switched to the car park outside the Rainbow supermarket in Manning Road under the jurisdiction of Lincolnshire County Council and a weekly collection was instituted. In the ensuing 15 years, the amount of rubbish disposed of in visiting refuse vehicles between 8.30 a m and 11.30 a m on a Saturday morning became the highest of any other similar site in the county.

THE RAINBOW CAR PARK SITE

The facility became so well-used that it eventually resulted in two hours of chaos every Saturday morning. Queues had usually formed by 8 a m, half an hour before the trucks had arrived, and from then on it was a continual push and shove to dispose of waste that should by rights have been collected from the doorsteps. Men and women, many of them old age pensioners, struggled under the weight of heavy plastic bags and boxes as they were forced to stand in line for five and ten minutes at a time until they could reach the waiting refuse vehicles to dump their garbage. Sometimes they had to make three and four journeys from their cars to the trucks to dispose of their loads and there were frequent quarrels and bickering. 

During this time, none of the local authorities thought it worthwhile establishing a permanent waste recycling centre. But the situation changed dramatically when the management of the Rainbow store served notice that the car park would not be available after 20th October 2000. For several months, the management had been alarmed at the inconsiderate and even dangerous driving and parking by some visitors and the dumping of rubbish before the mobile skips arrived but despite previous warnings that the facility would be ended, Lincolnshire County Council did nothing to find an alternative site.

When the final notice came, the council made an abortive attempt to buy a three acre site in South Fen for a permanent waste recycling centre and when the car park was finally closed to them, they moved the venue to the car park adjoining the leisure centre in Queen's Road, promising that a permanent site would be found by the end of the financial year in April 2002, which was 27 years after the problem was first identified.

THE PINFOLD LANE SITE

A new centre in Pinfold Lane run by the private contractors Bullimores, eventually opened on 27th April 2002, but only on Saturdays and Sundays between 8 am and 4 pm, although a seven-day operation began the following September when the mobile skip system was finally phased out, 26 years after the problem was first identified.

The seven days a week service ended in April 2012 when opening times were reduced to just Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday from 9 am to 4 pm as part of a cost cutting move by Lincolnshire County Council. With the new times came a change in the lay out, the introduction of a one-way system for orderly queuing and a ban on drivers dumping their own waste in the waiting skips with staff on hand to lift it in for them instead. No reason was given for ending a system that had operated perfectly well for the previous ten years and those who asked were told that it was axed because of concerns for health and safety and that the county council wished to avoid the possibility of anyone incurring a back injury with all of that lifting and carrying.

There was also scathing criticism about the changes, notably in the letters column of The Local newspaper where Pam Osborne of Kestrel Drive, Bourne, wrote on 11th May 2012: “This was one of the best amenities in the town with no queuing and a pleasure to visit but what on earth has happened recently? The one-way system is a nightmare, the long queues tiresome, the site no longer user friendly and it looks a chaotic mess. Very fortunately, the staff have remained the same, helpful, cheerful and working hard to try and make it a success.”

The major changes came at that same time as the opening of a new private waste recycling centre at Baston, five miles down the road from Bourne, which now operates for seven days a week, and there has been widespread speculation that this was too much of a coincidence and could herald the complete closure of the Pinfold Lane site.

THE SOUTH FEN ROAD SITE

The household waste recycling centre in Pinfold Lane closed in March 2016 when the existing contract with the site operators, Bullimore’s, ran out and the company decided not to renew. Instead, Lincolnshire County Council announced that a new purpose built centre would be built on a site in South Fen Road which they would run themselves and this eventually opened on April 1st.

“This reaffirms our commitment to improving our recycling services across Lincolnshire and we wish to expand on this further as budgets allow", said the council’s executive member for waste and recycling, Councillor Reg Shore. "We see this as an exciting opportunity for residents to access high quality recycling facilities in the wider Bourne area."

Unfortunately, the opening of the new centre was greeted with dismay by Bourne residents who used it with a flood of complaints in the social media that it was badly organised and there were lengthy and frustrating delays in being able to dump their waste with a subsequent tailback of waiting cars.

The unfortunate loss of the Pinfold Lane site was further highlighted by the Rotary Club of Bourne whose members awarded Bullimore's their 2016 Rose Bowl Award for its work over the past ten years, an award made periodically by the club in recognition of outstanding environmental achievements in the town. "Many people have commented on the cheerfulness and helpfulness of the staff in dealing with their waste and we felt it important to make the company aware of the high esteem in which they were held", said a spokesman.

An unwanted divan was dumped at the roadside in Meadow Drove, Bourne, in April 2001 (above left) while kitchen fittings and equipment were left beside a field entrance on the edge of woodland at Essendine the previous year (above right). These are examples of widespread fly tipping which has continued even after the opening of the new seven day a week waste facility in Bourne and this refrigerator was dumped in the rubbish-strewn lay-by alongside the A6121 at Toft, three miles south west of the town, in March 2003 (right).

PHOTO ALBUM

QUEUING TO DUMP RUBBISH AT RAINBOW

Householders queuing to dump their rubbish in the back of the refuse freighters at the Rainbow car park in October 2001.

The Pinfold Lane waste recycling centre which opened in 2002.

Opening hours at the centre were restricted to weekends only in 2012 and the centre re-designed with a one-way system although many found it slow and it also attracted long queues of cars as a result.

The variety of unwanted items dumped at the household waste recycling centre is unending but these cuddly toys which were abandoned in one of the skips were too good to be destroyed and so staff rescued them and gave them a safe perch where they could welcome drivers in the queue of waiting cars.

REVISED APRIL 2016

Return to Rubbish

Go to:     Main Index     Villages Index