Today’s guest blog comes from Cllr Steve Pearce, Cabinet member for Waste, Commercialisation and Regulatory Services.
When the Mayor asks anyone to join his Cabinet it’s a very great honour. For a born and bred Bristolian like me, it is doubly-so.
The change in role hasn’t been without its humour. The irony that I am the newly appointed cabinet member for Waste wasn’t lost on me when my own recycling collection was recently missed in the aftermath of the snow! But I’d like to repeat Marvin’s thanks for all the hard work done during the disruption caused by the inclement weather.
The new fleet of vehicles should begin arriving at Bristol Waste over the next few weeks and months. This should see a steady improvement in the reliability of the collections that residents get as the older, more unreliable vehicles are progressively retired from service. Keep an eye out for the new trucks.
The city should also see increased activity around our Clean Streets agenda as we continue to raise the profile of this work still further by making the streets measurably cleaner by 2020. The public has a right to be able to take pride in the state of our city. I am proud to see the large army of volunteers and committed community groups to tidy our neighbourhoods. We will come down even harder on the minority that seem to think that littering and fly-tipping restrictions are things that other people should take heed of, not them.
We’re progressing with (what I will insist on calling) our Household Waste Reuse & Recycling Centres at Avonmouth and Hartcliffe Way at a pace that was started by Kye Dudd, my predecessor. The team is working hard to get these built and operational as soon as we can. I receive fortnightly reports on this work. This was not only a manifesto promise; it’s a matter of the city’s carbon footprint and a financial & social benefit too.
Deputy Mayor Asher Craig and I had a very exciting meeting with members of the Pesticide Safe Bristol Alliance in the last couple of weeks following the debate at January’s Full Council on the use of glyphosate to control weeds. We will work on a One City basis to develop new methodologies to control weeds that are less dependent on pesticide use, especially glyphosate. Not just on council owned land but across the city. Watch out for more news on this work in the coming months.
My promotion to the Cabinet hasn’t been without an element of sadness but relinquishing my Licencing, Scrutiny and Audit committee roles goes with the territory. I give thanks to the team in Licensing for their help and support over the last few years, both elected members and officers. Not only has it been a total blast but I’m certain that we’ve saved lives and made Bristol’s night-time economy a safer place to be. I know that they’ll continue the great work.
The Scrutiny team will joke that I’ve joined the Dark Side but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time on several of our Scrutiny Commissions over the years; for a while serving as Chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Management Board. Again I want to thank friends and colleagues, for their kindnesses. Their help and advice over the last several years have helped to secure this new opportunity for me. I couldn’t have done it without you.
And there’s more. But I suspect my editor will already be losing patience with me because of the length of this piece. Three hundred words, I was told. That was never going to happen. So I’ll just have to elbow the Mayor to one side on another occasion if I’m to blog about some of those other things!