Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Council refuses to clean up spilt bin without staff qualified to wear wellies

A council allegedly refused to clean up a dustbin that fell into a four inch stream because no-one "qualified" to wear wellington boots was available.

An official from Chichester District Council also allegedly said that ropes and harnesses would be needed to prevent workers from being washed away.

The bizarre health and safety requirements were listed by an official from the district council's fly-tipping department, according to David Barnard, a local parish councillor.

He described the council's attempt to impose the regulations as "bureaucracy gone mad".

Eventually, three parish councillors donned their wellington boots and tidied the mess themselves, a chore that took 10 minutes. One of those involved, Terry Curran, the council chairman, said: "I took the contents and the bin to the local dump.

"Everyone seems to be frightened of lawsuits these days. We nearly had to scrap our annual litter clean-up because the district council feared someone might get hurt and would sue. We got round that but other parishes have just stopped having them."

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