By Councillor Oonagh Moulton

I read your article 'Decaying Christmas trees left uncollected by council' on the very day that I received a particularly irritating standard response from the council to queries that I raised based on residents’ and my own experience of the haphazard and non-collection of Christmas trees in Wimbledon Park.

Unfortunately it’s not just residents in Marina Avenue who are suffering.

Here in my ward too, whole streets were missed completely whilst a parallel road was cleared; and elsewhere parts of roads were cleared and yet another side street left.

In despair, residents were dumping trees in empty doorways to be left rotting there for weeks despite making various reports and complaints.

Of course many of us would have taken our trees to Weir Road ourselves to be recycled but sadly the Labour council have closed that facility too.

I asked what I thought was a reasonable question to Merton’s Head of Street Scene and Waste, namely "what plans do you have for clearing Christmas trees from my ward and who is checking off the streets done?"

The Director for Environment agreed this was a reasonable request but that was over three weeks ago now and I am still waiting - as are my residents and council taxpayers.

This issue of decaying Christmas trees surely highlights an important wider question: has this council got any kind of grip on the management of our waste collection services or are they just being allowed to decay too?

Coun Moulton is Merton Conservatives' education spokeswoman and represents Wimbledon Park ward.

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