Over the last year Birmingham Conservatives have been carrying out a survey of residents views on Wheelie Bins across many parts of Birmingham. The survey which was generally completed by hand but which was also available online has now shown conclusively that residents oppose the introduction of Wheelie Bins across Birmingham. Over 17,000 households have responded to the Conservative party survey, with more than 13,000 households opposing the introduction of Wheelie Bins.
The results also showed variations between different parts of the City.
The Council carried out two consultations, the first was City wide through an open survey and peoples panel survey. This did not ask people if they wanted wheelie bins but did record if people gave a preference in the comments section (page 60, opinion research services, Summary Report, appendix to the Birmingham City Council Cabinet Report). Looking at those who gave a view through the comments we can see that for the open survey 61% of people stated they were against wheelie bins, while on the peoples panel this figure was 60%.
Deputy leader of the Conservative Group Cllr Robert Alden (Erdington Ward, Conservative) said "the Labour Council said they would launch a consultation to ask residents their views on wheelie bins, however in the end the Council consultation never even asked if people were in favour. The only recorded views were through a comment section, in which those expressing a view around 60% opposed their introduction".
The second consultation that the Council carried out was a before and after interview of people in the pilot wards. It is from this data that the figure of 91% in favour of Wheelie's has been produced, a survey of 248 people carried across two wards, before the full roll out of the wheelie bin scheme, i.e. including the changes due to garden waste, had been carried out.
Cllr Robert Alden added "the public have spoken and made their views very clear. Unlike the Council the Conservative Party have gone to the effort of engaging with large numbers of members of the public, leading to more than 17000 households giving their views. 76% have said no to wheelie bins. However the City Council seems determined to ignore residents views and instead given added weight to the 248 people they surveyed when decided on the future roll out of Wheelie Bins".
Cllr Robert Alden concluded "the Cabinet report of the 30th July 2012, clearly stated that the Council will introduce Wheelie Bins regardless of the results of a bid for funding from the Weekly Collection scheme fund. The report went onto explain that Birmingham would have a fortnightly refuse collection system unless the Government Bid was successful. It was and so for the next couple of years Birmingham retains it weekly collection scheme, however Wheelie bins were to be introduced regardless. Therefore Labour needs to come clean over why it has spent more than £1 million consulting on a scheme and promoting a scheme which it had already decided to introduce over 15 months ago. As well as ignoring residents they have wasted their taxes as well".