Tag Archives: Lincoln

When will my bin be collected?

Council, Lincoln, ,

We’ve just moved house, not far from the last one (still in Park Ward) and tomorrow would have been our bin day. However I can see no sign of any bins out on the street. Remembering that I had seen something on the council website with a list of street names and days I tried to find it.
First I came across the GIS site run jointly with the County Council. This can tell me who is my MP, MEP, County and City Councillors, where the nearest Library, Doctor or Dump Recycling Centre is. However for the day of bin collections I just get a link back to the City Council website.
Trawling through here I can see that my bins should be out by 7am, if my bins should have been collected on Christmas or Boxing Day the alternate day I should have put them out, that the weekly large black bin trial has ended, if I have a real Christmas Tree it can be collected during the next two weeks, but nowhere I can find which day my bins will be collected on.
The closest I have found is on this page which states

To find out what collection services are available for your street, please refer to the Waste Collection Calendar (NOTE: This is currently being updated and is due to be available in March 2008).

As it’s nearly March 09, I really hope that it would be up by now.
I guess I’ll have to try the old fashioned way of working out which day the bins are, talking to the neighbours.

Great Northern Terrace – Very well done!

Lincoln, , ,

One of the things I noticed about Lincoln compared to Hemel Hempstead is the way in which the tip is organised.
In Hemel (Herts County Council) you had big skips with metal stairs. The staff were always unfriendly and looked aghast as you started filling their bins in case you might actually give them some work to do.
Where as Lincoln (Lincolnshire County Council) it’s in one big loop. You can pull over, drop off, drive forward a bit, empty some more and as it’s ramped there are no stairs. They have collections for Glass, Plastic, Paper, Clothes, Cardboard, Tetrapak, Oil, Batteries, Garden, Electrical, Rubble plus others which I’ve yet to spot. As soon as you stop a member of staff is willing to help get stuff out of the car, sort it into the correct containers or point you in the right direction and because of this they are able to hit 75%+ on recycling what arrives every month.

So what do those under-age drinkers drink?

Featured, Lincoln, Lincolnshire Echo, , , , , , ,

The Echo last week ran with a story about the Police confiscating alcohol from under-age drinkers. They published a table of what was taken and had a picture of the haul.

Under-age Drinking Now was it like what the Tories were saying? That the problem is with alcopops and super-strength booze?

Nope, here are the figures:
Beer – 157.69 litres (78%)
Cider – 25.52 litres (13%)
Wine – 7.5 litres (4%)
Spirits – 4.2 litres (2%)
Alcopops – 5.72 litres (3%)

and whilst the beer and cider figures don’t separate normal from strong, the picture clearly shows a large number of cans, bottles and boxes of Carling, Fosters, Stella and Carlsberg.

Council crack down on junk gardens

Council, Lincoln, ,

Echo 2008-03-20 In Thursday Echo we had the front page How does your garden grow?. The article is about the Environment Protection Team taking four households to court over the state of their back gardens. All of them had been asked several times to sort them out, and finally the magistrates fined them over £150 each.
Hopefully other households in Lincoln will realise that the mess in your backgarden affects your neighbours and that the council have a right and a duty to sort it out.

Council Tax up by 11.1%

Council, Lincoln, , , ,

Council Tax BillUnfortunately for those in Lincoln (and very similar for those elsewhere in Lincolnshire), the 11.1% increase isn’t over 2 or 3 years. Nor is it calculated against the odd stealth local charge. Nope the figure of 11.1% is the actual increase in council tax on my bill right in front of me.
For this year Lincolnshire Police Authority have been fcked by the government and in return fcked every single council tax payer in the county.
Last year our band A house paid £87.72 to the police, this year it’s £156.90. That’s an increase of 78.9%. Seriously 78.9%! I now pay the police more than I pay the City Council (£147.84).
What seems to be worse is there is nothing we can do about it. If the county or city wanted to raise their portion by over 5% the government would stop them and if they didn’t at the next election the electorate might, but as far as I can see the police seem to be a law unto themselves.

A tale of two tickets

Entertainment, , , ,

In the last few days we’ve bought tickets to two events, Supergrass at the Engine Shed and Hard Graft at the Drill Hall.
Supergrass tickets were on sale at £17.50, so for a pair it should cost £35. However I was also charged £2 per ticket booking fee and £1.50 postage taking the cost to £40.50. (Collection would have been £1.75)
Hard Graft were on sale at £8, so for a pair it should cost £16. However I was also charged 50p to pay via card, and 35p to have them posted.
So the question is, how do venues and promoters get away with charging so much in extras. There is no option to aviod the booking fee. There is only one offical supplier of tickets (Ticketline), so I can’t shop around for a cheaper fee, and is a first class stamp really £1.50 these days. Whilst the fees from the Drill Hall were reasonable. If I went to the booking office and paid with cash, there would have been no extras.
Ryanair have since been forced to quote prices with all unavoidable charges included (taxes etc), shouldn’t this also be the case for gigs?

Local Post Office to Close, again!

Lincoln, , , ,

In the last round of Post Office closures the branch on Cross Street was closed down. At the time we were told that we could easily get to our second nearest Post Office which is located on the High Street opposite St Peter at Gowts school (also the name of the branch). However according to todays plans this branch is now also to be closed.
How long before Lincoln is just left with one Post Office?